1825] ME. COCKBILL. 77 



" I sav, my good friend, at the brook wliy so linger ? " 

 "I got such a horrible thorn in my finger." 

 " A thorn in your finger ? " another replied, 

 " You mean that the brook was a thorn in your side ! " 

 " "Why so far in the rear ? Were the spurs of no use ? " 

 " Oh ! I rode to a halloa." " A hollow excuse." 

 Many thanks let us give to the Staffordshire peer, 

 Whose pack has this day left us all in the rear. 

 May his sport be as good as it's hitherto been, 

 May he see as good runs as he's hitherto seen, 

 And before many years have passed over his head 

 He'll beat all the world both in science and speed. 



Mr. Cockbill was a conspicuous rider to hounds for 

 tliii-ty years in Warwickshire. He was a very heavy 

 weight, but a good sportsman, with a capital eye to 

 hounds, and he always rode with a martingale to his 

 bridle. " Don't talk to me," he would say, " of the 

 inconvenience and danger of a martingale. With it I 

 can make my horses put their feet where / like ; without 

 it they generally put them where thcii like, and then I 

 get a tumble, and I fall heavy." There was a good 

 deal of truth in this. Mai-tingales w^re not much used 

 or appreciated at that time, but when afterwards they were 

 put on bridles exactly at the right length, many horses 

 were ridden with safety and pleasure which otherwise 

 might have given a fall to their riders. There is differ- 

 ence of opinion as to which bridle the martingale should 

 be put on ; I think that it should be attached to the 

 snaffle bridle by straps of exactly the right length 

 required to give a horse sufficient freedom, and at the same 

 time to steady his head, and that it should not be attached 

 to the girth, but to the breast plate. — C. M. 



Ben Hollo way, an Oxfordshire man, hunted a 

 great deal in Warwickshire at this time, and was a 

 capital judge of a hunter and a good horseman 

 Mr. Handford, a nephew of Mr. John Lockley, and 

 Mr. Francis Charlton were also both good men to 

 hounds. 



We believe that in these days very few ladies hunted, 

 but we give an excellent sketch by Henry Aiken of a 



