SIR CHARLES KNIGHTLEY, BART., FAWSLEY PARK, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. The country-life, the country-homes, and, above all, the countrygentlemen of England, have long been to foreigners objects of envy and admiration, which they strive to imitate in vain. They are as well aware as we can be ourselves that our institutions owe much of their stability to these peculiar features of English society; but with all their anxiety to adopt the same habits and reap the same advan tages, there is some ingredient wanting in the corresponding class of every other nation, which makes the English country gentleman stand alone, like one of the oaks in his own park, a rare specimen of native vigour, judicious cultivation, and advantageous position. We should much like to walk one of our least enthusiastic foreign friends through the park at Fawsley, the picturesque seat of Sir Charles Knightley, whose likeness so appropriately adorns the present number of our magazine. We should like to show him the magnificent old oaks, rich with the accumulated growth of centuries, and in this glorious summer-time spreading upwards in the sunlight into a perfect fairly-land of beauty-the undulating park dotted with deer, now clustering under some giant of the forest, now filing leisurely down to the calm bright water, only disturbed by the dip of a swallow, or the lazy plash of a half-gorged pike-the distant meadows rippled with new-mown hay, melting into the haze of a July noon, and the trim gardens and pleasure-grounds dark with evergreens or bright with flowers. If he be a poet or a painter (and nine men out of ten are one or other in their hearts, although, heaven be praised! the faculty seldom develops itself into colours or verse), he may drink in beauty till his eyes are dazzled and his brain swims--if he be an antiquarian and a historian, we will bring him to the fine old house, and fill him full of romantic records and soul-stirring memorials of the olden time. He has read of the Gunpowder Plot; he has heard. of Catesby and his comrades; nor is Guido Fawkes necessarily connected in his mind with a dislocated figure carried to and fro by a troop of shouting urchins on the fifth of November. These bold conspirators used to meet at Fawsley, and the room is still in existence which enclosed that council of dark, desperate men. He is acquainted with the cause and progress of our great Rebellion, and Cavalier and Roundhead are no empty nicknames in his ear. The Knightleys of the Seventeenth Century were then stout partizans of liberty, as they have since been staunch supporters of the throne. The history of the family would fill a volume-the stock has always been good-its scions sans peur et sans reproche, and the present baronet is no unworthy representative of his race. Sir Charles Knightley was born Anno Domini 1781, and is consequently now in his 76th year, a fact which will scarcely be credited by those who witness his still graceful seat and pliant figure as he canters along on a thorough-bred hack to inspect his farm or visit his tenantry, at seven o'clock on a cold winter's morning. These early hours, added to temperate habits and constant out-of-door exercise, have probably been the means of preserving intact his excellent constitution up to an advanced period of life. He received the usual education of an English gentleman, passing from Rugby to Christ Church, Oxford, in the customary manner. A process of hardening first, and polishing afterwards, which best fits the stone for its setting in after-life. But Sir Charles was not of the stuff which settles quietly down into a mere drone in the hive. He inherited the mettle of his ancestors; and when our country was threatened with invasion, in the year of panic, 1801, we find him joining the militia, and doing duty with that force until all fear of aggression from our unruly neighbours had passed away. In those days, as now, fox-hunting was the favourite pastime-nay, with the young almost the engrossing business of the winter months; and Sir Charles was too well situated for its pleasures, not to become an ardent votary of the chase. He was young, spirited, full of energy, and a brilliant rider; for many years Northamptonshire rung with the daring feats and excellent horsemanship of the famous Knightley "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona," we do not mean to assert that both before and after his time there have not been many sportsmen distinguished for their performances over a country; but we do maintain that amongst Sir Charles Knightley's contemporaries we find the majority of those names which we have always been taught to consider the ornaments of the hunting-field. Lord Jersey, Messrs. Assheton Smith, Musters, Cholmondeley, Cooke, Lindow, Germaine, and a host of first-flight men, were in the constant habit of meeting each other, either with the Quorn or Pytchley hounds; and in those days, as now, the chivalry of the shires were ever ready to bring science, skill, and daring into play, for the avowed object of "being in the same field with the hounds," and the inward motive of going "a turn better than their neighbours." We have always heard that the Northamptonshire baronet was second to none; nay, on more than one occasion, and even when not mounted on Benvolio, "all alone in his glory." Of this famous hunter, avowedly the best Sir Charles ever owned, we must say a few words. Like his master, he was quite thorough-bred; but unlike the man, the horse seems only to have had an acquired taste for hunting, and to have shown, on his first introduction to the chase, a very determined antipathy to following hounds. Patience and good usage, however, will succeed when all else fails, particularly with a well-bred one. Sir Charles took the young horse out by himself one fine morning, when living at the famous club at Pytchley, and endeavoured to bring him to reason-in vain; stock still be stood; no power could induce him to jump a fence. The rider came home to luncheon somewhat disgusted, but not discouraged. After a glass of Madeira, he brought him out again, still patient, good-tempered, and persevering. The animal, that would have resisted coercion to the death, was subdued by kindness, and from that day Benvolio became, perhaps, the most brilliant hunter in England. Of his jumping powers we need only say that Sir Charles was seen on one occasion to ride him over a locked six-barred gate, on to a canal-bridge, and over the corresponding gate which was not locked, into the field beyond. It was also on this horse, if we mistake not, that he cleared the surprising distance of thirty-one feet, over a fence and brook, just below Brixworth Hill, at a spot which has ever since gone by the name of "Knightley's leap." We ourselves know the place well, and, even on a second Benvolio, honestly confess no power on earth would induce us to ride at it. As a master of hounds Sir Charles is so well known to the sporting-world, that it is needless to enter into any particulars as to his system, his establishment, or the excellent sport he showed. Amongst bis contemporaries, he was thought to breed his hounds a little too fine; but Sir Charles loved pace, and his knowledge of animal nature led him to pay a just and unvarying tribute to blood. No man has perhaps been so successful in breeding first class animals of every description; and his late sale of short-horns, at Fawsley, realizing the sum of £6,163 10s., proves that his method was a successful one, and that in every particular he went the right way to work. As time stole on, and 'middle age, though it left the eye as light, the form as lithe and vigorous as ever, damped somewhat the redundant spirits, and subdued as it matured the tastes of manhood, Sir Charles bid adieu to the hunting-field, deeply to the regret of his brother-sportsmen, and devoted his time and attention more assiduously to agricultural pursuits, a taste to which he has ever since been most constant. Popular as he is, and beloved by high and low, perhaps amongst the farmers of Northamptonshire more than any other class, Sir Charles enjoys the reputation of being a perfect oracle. He has done more for agriculture in that district than any man now living, and is respected and admired accordingly. Engrossing, however, as is the pursuit of farming, it never seduced this thorough English gentleman to waver for an instant from the duties of his high position; and even in the shades of wooded Fawsley, and the peaceful joys of a happy domestic hearth and an extended circle of friends, his attention was not to be distracted from the stirring events of the great political world. During the Reform agitation of 1831, when the coming disorganised the whole fabric of English society, it was resolved by the late Lord Spencer, and the present Lord Fitzwilliam, to oust the late Mr. Cartwright from the representation of the whole county of Northampton. Sir Charles came boldly to the rescue, stood by the side of his old friend, and kept the poll open for thirteen days, but without success. In 1834, he was returned without opposition for the Southern Division of Northamptonshire, for which he sat till 1852, when he retired in favour of his son, Mr. Rainald Knightley-a gentleman who, in addition to a cultivated intellect and literary tastes, inherits his father's popularity, and his happy knack of stealing over a country in a quick thing. Notwithstanding the stirring and busy life led by Sir Charles Knightley, Time has indeed dealt very lightly with him, both in person and spirits. As the poet says, he has just brushed him with his wing, Bill so and so passed by. To this day his habits are as active, his mind as keen, and his energy as untiring as in the morning prime of youth. Even now the personal advantages for which, as a young man, he was so remarkable, are but chastened by the lapse of years. He is still one of the finest horsemen that ever got into a saddle-hand, seat, and nerve are all admirable; and although he has for many seasons discontinued the practice of following hounds, he is still to be seen, on some fine winter's morning, eagerly watching the merry pack as they wind their fox through the famous holding covert of Badby Wood, his own property, and, as may easily be conceived with such an owner, a certain find. There are but few left of the comrades of his youth; and the once-famous Pytchley Club, of which he was so long an ornament, in the days of the late Lord Spencer, Mr. Bouverie, and Mr. Cooke, is now completely broken up. The two latter gentlemen are still alive and flourishing; nor has the memory of Mr. Cooke's famous horse Lancet, bought by him of Mr. Nethercote (a brother member), for the handsome figure of seven hundred guineas, yet entirely died out in the memory of the sportsmen of Northamptonshire; but, with the exception of the gentlemen we have named, and one or two old Peninsular veterans, it would be difficult to muster half-a-dozen of that famous association, which was once second only to Melton for the charms of society and the enjoyment of the chase. All that's bright must fade: "the black eye will grow dim, the straight back will stoop, the full leg will fall, but the heart is always young"; and if there be an elixir vitæ to keep that organ ever fresh and healthy, it must surely be a career spent in a wholesome alternation of the duties of charity and good-will, with the simple pleasures of the country and the field. As Sir Charles Knightley rides out of his own gates at Fawsley, the peasant looks after him from his work, and smiles a blessing on his benefactor; the sturdy yeoman doffs his hat when he meets him in the lane, and is gratified at a passing word of kindness from the liberal landlord and judicious friend ; whilst the gentry and aristocracy of the country are proud of their order, while they can number in its ranks such sterling men as the widely and deservedly-respected lord of Fawsley. Long may he continue in the position in which Providence has placed him, and which he so nobly fills; long may he be spared as a bright example to the country gentlemen of England-the kind master, the tender parent, the considerate landlord, the staunch friend, and the perfect gentleman, in the highest, the noblest, and the widest acceptation of the term. [FROM A CORRESPONDENT.] If ever sportsman deserved a niche in the Temple of Fame, the original of the clever portrait of this month's Sporting Magazine does 80. With every claim to distinction as a man of high family, extensive influence, and many excellencies, Sir Charles Knightley demands a notice in these pages above them all, as one of the best sportsmen and very finest horsemen that this or any country has ever produced. In his earlier days, as the master of but a small stud, his judgment in the selection of his horses was singularly happy; and we may even doubt whether his innate knowledge of the latent powers of a "Newmarket young one" was not equal, or nearly so, to his wonderful talent of riding them. Every man acquainted with the Pytchley country has heard of Sir Marinel and Benvolio; those names are as "familiar in our mouths as household words ;" and when we mention them we call up, from days lang syne, the tall, handsome, aristocratic figure that so well bestrode them. There sat Sir Charles Knightley, the impersonation of everything high-bred and sportsman-like in the country gentleman" Heu! mutata fides!" to have exchanged such a seat for one in St. Stephen's. : In a brief notice like this, to repeat the innumerable anecdotes of Sir Charles's (then Mr. Knightley's) performances on these two celebrated horses would be simply impossible. His peculiarity of riding was then marked by the most rigid determination. A quick eye, with great knowledge of pace, and an unbending course when he had once marked his place, good, bad, or indifferent, distinguished him above his fellows all fences, moreover, were alike to his vicelike seat and delicate hands. This peculiarity of seat is equally remarkable to this dayapparent ease with wonderful power. In the centre of his horse, sitting well down upon him, he seems screwed to his saddle; whilst the rest of his body has a grace, even now, not surpassed by the finest horseman of our day. To see him cantering on a thorough-bred one (for he hates anything else in all relations of life) into Daventry on market-day, in his faultless leathers and highly polished boots, may excite the admiration, perchance the envy, of younger men. Amongst the numerous anecdotes related of this deservedly popular once master of the Pytchley hounds, we give the following: we believe it to be substantially correct; though time, that "edax rerum" not having been able to swallow it altogether, may have rusted or damaged it to a considerable extent. A fox was found, probably at an earlier hour than modern sportsmen would think consonant with comfort, and Sir Charles Knightley, on a newly purchased and half-broken young one, was stopped by a flight of rails: timber it was at all events. The hounds ran away from him: the field followed them-some by the straight course, others by Shuffler's Bottom, until the worthy master was left to his own devices. The probability is that we should have looked for a gap, after some reasonable allowance of time for appearances: we know one or two, at least, who would have taken advantage of any trifling damage that might have occurred to the fence lower down; and one or two more who would have thought five minutes or so long enough to fight with a selfwilled thorough-bred stallion. But not so the subject of this notice. With that indomitable pluck which is as plainly visible in that compressed lip as if it were written there, at the end of a moderately good ring of some half-hour there sat the master still: at the same rail, on the same saddle, and with the same determination, there was Sir Charles and Sir Marinel. Did Sir Charles beat him? Of course he did. Sir Charles Knightley is not the sort of man now to be beat, when he has once made up his mind; and we take it in those days he was to be beaten at that game by neither man nor horse. When the price of horse-flesh varied in those counties from fifty to one hundred and fifty pounds, six |