Sporting Literature

George Whyte-Melville (1821 - 1878)I’ve already confessed to you that George Whyte-Melville and William Henry Ogilvie are my favorite sporting poets. In their works are stitched the insistent rhythms of the galloping horse crossing open country. What follows is an ode to Whyte-Melville written by Ogilvie himself.

In this tribute appear numerous lines, phrases and references cleverly taken from many of Whyte-Melville’s poems. Whoever can extract the greatest number of Whyte-Melville lines and phrases in this poem and identify the Whyte-Melville poems from which they are taken will be named Foxhunting Life’s Most Literate Foxhunter of 2012! To submit your entry, click here.

Whyte-Melville by William Henry Ogilvie

With lightest of hands on the bridle, with lightest of hearts in the dance,
To the gods of Adventure and Laughter he quaffed the red wine of Romance,
Then wistfully turning the goblet he spilled the last drops at our feet,
And left us his tales to remember and left us his songs to repeat.

The Fox's Morning & Other Stories, W.H. DeCourcy Wright, edited by Ann L. McIntosh, illustrated by Peggy Kauffman, The Elkridge-Harford Hunt, Maryland, 2010, 106 pages, $33.00, available from Ann L. McIntosh, 3810 Beatty Road, Monkton, MD 21111

W.H. DeCourcy Wright suffered a fatal fall from his horse while foxhunting on February 3, 1951. The horse stepped in a groundhog hole, throwing his rider heavily and breaking his neck. For years after that, Wassie Ball, another larger-than-life personage from the distant mists of Elkridge Harford Hunt Club history, albeit from a slightly more recent era than Mr. Wright, would thrill local youngsters by showing them that exact groundhog hole and then poking around in the loose dirt and stones surrounding the hole to find tiny shards of glass, ostensibly from the deceased foxhunter’s spectacles.  

For my part, other than having a vague knowledge that DeCourcy Wright was one of the defining personages from the glory days of our hunt club before and after The War, and having an exact knowledge of which groundhog hole brought about his demise, I knew little about him.  

Little, that is, until his grand-daughter Ann McIntosh left in my mailbox the collection of his writings that comprise this book. It turns out that this is one of the freshest, brightest, most brilliant and original collection of "sporting" pieces I have ever read. By the way, "sporting" is intended to be descriptive, not limiting. This is wonderful writing, period.