Related article: latter ; whereas intuitive know- ledge and work lies before the would-be proficient in writing. On him falls the severest criti- cism and the weightier task, and as Pope says : "True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learnt to dance." Sportsmen do not indulge their taste for sport for the sake of writing about it, unless indeed it be pioneer travellers and big-game shooters, who go forth to make books as well as to collect tro- phies. Nor is it the ambition of professors, wranglers, or classic scholars of any kind to pour out their thoughts on sport, so that for the most part sporting litera- ture has for its votaries the un- learned, or at least amateurs. In fact, to write on sport is not the ambition of members of the Athe- naeum, nor is it favoured by the editors of our leading monthlies. We have in the last fifty years added little to our text-books on sport, except by the publication of the many volumes of the Bad- minton Library ; . and what profit is there to do so ? Can any of us improve upon Beckford, Vyner, Delm6 Radcliffe, or Mills, as text-books on hunting, or can we increase our knowledge of hounds by singing over and over again the praises of Belvoir blood ? Can we cap Druid's " Saddle and Sirloin," or his ** Silk and Scarlet " ? Can we put Jorrocks in the shade, or despise the sweet melodies of Whyte-Melville or Warburton? Can we speak out as"Nimrod"did, or be as social and chatty as Cecil in his hunting tours ? Can we labour for years to outdo Taunton in his history of celebrated race- horses, or compete in pedigrees with old Osborne ? Can we write more elegant prose than Bromley- Davenport, or pluck feathers from the cap of ** the Gentleman in Black," who for so many years adorned your volumes with his epics ? I trow not. It is our happy lot in these later days to enrich our minds with Buy Moduretic all the wisdom and knowledge that has gone before us, rather than to pile Pelion upon Ossa of theory and exemplifications. There is indeed a fine foundation on which to work, and the sporting writer of to day has more ample scope for his abilities, more light upon his subjects, more readers, more tablets on which to engrave his thoughts, more kttdos — in fine, more responsibility in his work by ten thousand times — than was his lot one hundred, or even fifty years ago. 1901.] ARS SCRIBENDI. 263 It Moduretic Tablets was not many years after I left Eton til at the Sporting Maga- 2iney on the loss of " Nimrod,'* died a natural death, after an existence of nearly eighty years, and on its ashes sprung up and flourished your magazine, now approaching its Jubilee. For a long time I had aspired to be admitted into its sacred precincts. One Eton com- peer of mine, as "Amphion,** filled me with envy by his articles, and at last, after I had flung un- successfully several effusions into the Editor's box, I one day made bold to beard him in his den. Never shall I forget that day. When after gazing at the likeness of Kettledrum by Harry Hall, which then stood in the window of his printer's shop opposite the Royal Exchange, the resort of thousands of City men and boys, who loved those sporting pictures, I dashed in, and sent up my card to Mr. Baily. There he was in a little upstairs room, sitting, as was his wont, in his shirt-sleeves — a fine-featured, large old man, implacably stern to my young idea. And when he met me with, ** Well, young man, what can I do for you ? " I felt small to a degree. ** Ah I yes," he went on, **you sent me some- thing to read, did you not ? And I suppose you think you can write like Mr. Clark (• the Gentle- man in Black *), or * Amphion ' (Mr. Tyrrell), or Mr. Robert Grim- ston, do you ? Do you know Admiral Rous ? He is a friend of mine (Mr. B was very proud of his friendship with the Admiral), and he will not read trash, you know. What's your line ? " I briefly and nervously assured him that if he would give me a chance I thought in time I might work out an article or two for him. This I did, and we eventually became friends, so that whenever I was in London I had to present myself in ,his upper room, and he made me presents from time to time of pictures of Macaroni, Lord Clifden, Blair Athol, and The Colonel, with George Stevens up, from his gal- lery of winners, coloured from Harry Hall's paintings. From that day to this, nearly forty years, have I been faithful to my old love, and, marvellous to relate, have not had my congl from two successive editors. With a fast, yet tottering pen, I have galloped along all these years in a very ad captandum fashion on hunting and racing, and occa- sionally on fishing and wander- ings, and oh ! so often have I laid down my pen in a dissatisfied fashion, my subject ill-digested, my ideas in a tangle. Then again it is often a well-merited accusa- tion against me as a scribe that I am not an elegant exponent of my country's true prose — that I coin words, invent phrases, and make wrong quotations. In all which things I am guilty, and were I an aspirant for membership of the Athenaeum Club, should no doubt be promptly blackballed on this account, if on no other. Many people would say, Never mind, he is only a sporting writer, we must not expect too much in that line. Oh, but why should such things be said ? Are sporting themes unworthy of pure prose ? Are they never to rank among the volumes of the learned ? Are the pages of Baily only to be the prey of infants and indocti? Are its favourite subjects to be the laughing-stocks of our M.A.'s and bluestockings ? Some of them are so, 1 fear ; but now there is time in this new century to hark back, and take a leaf out of old volumes, ancient text - books — long-past treatise^ — that cry aloud for imitation even now. We may fairly say that there is no better 264 BAILYS MAGAZINE. [April