Dogs and All about Them

With so much prominence given to the Foxhound in the comparatively short period of forty or fifty years, it is no wonder that individual hounds became very celebrated in almost every part of the country. Mr. Pelham's Rockwood Tickler and Bumper were names well known in Yorkshire, and Lord Ludlow's Powerful and Growler were talked of both in Lincolnshire and Warwickshire. From the first, indeed, it appeared that certain hounds were very much better than others, and old huntsmen have generally declared for one which was in the whole length of their careers (sometimes extending to fifty years) immeasurably superior to all others they had hunted. Harry Ayris, who was for just half a century with Lord FitzHardinge, declared to the day of his death that nothing had equalled Cromwell; Osbaldeston said the same of Furrier, and Frank Gillard never falters from the opinion that Weathergage was quite by himself as the best hound he ever hunted. The Foxhound Kennel Stud Book abounds in the strongest proofs that hereditary merit in their work has been transmitted from these wonderful hounds, and they really make the history of the Foxhound. There have been many great hounds; but there must be the greatest of the great, and the following twelve hounds are probably the best England has ever seen:--Mr. Corbet's Trojan (1780), Lord Middleton's Vanguard (1815), Mr. Osbaldeston's Furrier (1820), Lord Henry Bentinck's Contest (1848), Lord FitzHardinge's Cromwell (1855), Mr. Drake's Duster (1844), Sir Richard Sutton's Dryden (1849), the Duke of Rutland's Senator (1862), Duke of Rutland's Weathergage (1874), the Earl of Coventry's Rambler (1874), Mr. E. P. Rawnsley's Freeman (1884), and the Grafton Woodman (1892).