D'ye ken John Peel?

D'ye ken John Peel?
30" w x 24" h (oil)

"Then here's to John Peel with my
heart and soul
Let's drink to his health, let's
finish the bowl,
We'll follow John Peel through fair
and through foul
If we want a good hunt in the morning."

"John Peel: A favourite English hunting song, dating from shortly before the middle of the l9th century. The hero, John Peel, was a Cumberland farmer, who kept a pack of fox hounds. The words of the song are by John Woodcock Graves, a fellow Cumbrian and their origin was told by the author to this effect:

When both men were in the heyday of their manhood they met one night at Graves's house at Caldbeek, to arrange some hunting matter. The grandmother of Graves's children was singing a child to sleep with an old nursery rhyme known as Bonnie Annie, or Whar wad Bonnie Annie lie, and Graves became struck by the idea of writing a song in honour of Peel to the tune the old lady was singing.

He completed a version before Peel left the house and jokingly remarked 'By Jove, Peel, you'll be sung when we are both run to earth'. Peel died in 1854, aged seventy-eight, and was buried at Caldbeck."
From: http://home.mweb.co.za/sa/salbu/JohnPeel.html

"D'ye ken John Peel"

D'ye ken John Peel with his coat so
gay,
D'ye ken John Peel at the break of
day,
D'ye ken John Peel when he's far away,
With his hounds and his horn in the
morning.
For the sound of his horn brought me
from my bed
And the cry of his hounds which he
oft times led,
Peel's 'view hullo' would awaken the
dead
Or the fox from his lair in the
morning.
Yes I ken John Peel and Ruby too
Ranter and Ringwood and Bellman and
True,
From a find to a check, from a check
to a view
From a view to a death in the morning
Then here's to John Peel with my
heart and soul
Let's drink to his health, let's
finish the bowl,
We'll follow John Peel through fair
and through foul
If we want a good hunt in the morning.
George Cecil Hyde in his hunting gear

Footnote (15 feb 2003):
Elizabeth, in a letter to me, states that she has the punch bowl which Frank included in the painting and it's design features a fox chased up a tree by a pack of hounds. Her son Charles has a sketch that Frank made of a hound against a huntsman's leg. Elizabeth knew that it was a preliminary sketch for a larger painting featuring a drinking scene, but had no further details, and was delighted when an image of this painting was received.

The owner of the painting says that his maternal grandparents, who as a hobby had collected some Chinese porcelain, had purchased a small export bowl with a hunting scene on it, which stood on their mantel directly below the painting. They took pleasure in pointing out, to those were interested, the similarities between the one in the painting and theirs ... my only regret ... is that my grandparents did not live to learn of the history of their favourite possessions.

"D'ye ken John Peel?"