After-dinner speeches must of course be cheery, and the cheery
element in Sir Stafford .Northcote's was its comparison of the duties of a leader of the House of Commons to the duties of a master of fox-hounds. "In the first place, we are expected to show a great deal of sport." "And then, we are not only ex- pected to show a great deal of sport, but to get through a great deal of business, as my honourable friend here is expected to kill a good many foxes Well, I think that the parallel holds good still further. A master of hounds has to take good care to be courteous to the whole field, to keep them in good-humour, at the same time that he does not allow them to take any liberties, to cross the scent, or to interfere with the proper conduct of the hunt by doing any little thing of that sort." Let us add that the leader of the House again, like a master of fox-hounds, must provide a little cub-hunting at the proper season,—Mr. Disraeli did not for- get that,—and that he must be in such favour with the neigh- bouring occupiers as not to incur much danger that the foxes intended for hunting should be trapped,—an unpopular practice sometimes winked at, we fear, by leaders of the House of Commons, who, for their own purposes, are not too .anxious to beat certain covers,—and the parallelism will be tolerably com- plete. For a newly-made master of fox-hounds, however, we must add, that Sir Stafford does not seem to be over-anxious for the first meet.
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