Transcribed from the 1873 Bunny and Evans edition by David Price. [Picture: Portrait of Lord Forester] OLD SPORTS AND SPORTSMEN Or, the Willey Country * * * * * WITH SKETCHES OF SQUIRE FORESTER AND HIS WHIPPER-IN TOM MOODY (“You all knew Tom Moody the Whipper-in well”). * * * * * BY JOHN RANDALL, F.G.S. AUTHOR OF “THE SEVERN VALLEY,” ETC. * * * * * LONDON: VIRTUE & CO., 26, IVY LANE SALOP: BUNNY and EVANS; and RANDALL, BOOKSELLER, MADELEY 1873 * * * * * LONDON PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., CITY ROAD. PREFACE. IT is too much to expect that these pages will altogether escape criticism; my object will have been gained, however, if I have succeeded in collecting and placing intelligibly before the reader such noticeable facts as are interesting matters of local history. Should it appear that there has been imported into the work too many details touching the earlier features of the country, the little that is generally known on the subject, the close connection of cause and effect, and the influences the old forests may have had in perpetuating a love of sport among some members of a family whose name appears to have been derived from pursuits connected therewith, must be my excuse. Dr. Arnold once remarked upon the close connection existing between nature and mankind, and how each in turn is affected by the other, whilst a living writer, and a deeper thinker, has gone still further, in saying that “He is great who is what he is from nature.” Of course it is not intended to claim greatness for Squire Forester in the sense in which the word is ordinarily used, or qualities, even, differing very much from those bearing the impress of the common mould of humanity; but simply that he was what he was from nature, from pre-disposition, and from living at the time he did. Also, that he was in many respects a fair representative of the squirearchy of the period, of a class of squires in whom we recognise features discoverable in those in the enjoyment of the same natural vigour in our own day, but who may have chosen different fields for its development.