140 THE WARWICKSHIRE HUNT. [1839 



From London to York, from Birming-luini to Oxford, 

 from Oxford to Exeter — on all the great higli roads, and 

 many others — the coaches were still running, and it was 

 under the tuition of Ward and his cotemporaries that 

 Mr. Robert Barnard and his friends learned coaching in 

 a way in which no amateur of the present day has a 

 chance of acquiring the art — by actual stern experience. 

 iS'o one put his four horses together better than Mr. 

 Barnard, and though his hands on a hunter were never 

 iirst rate, he had only to be seated on the box with the 

 ribbons, when he seemed to be able to do with his team 

 what he liked. I remember he used to say to us, " Any- 

 one can drive fast, my boy. Look at my horses, they are 

 only just out of a walk, and yet everyone is doing his 

 share ; " while I have lots of times seen him hit his near 

 side leader under the bars from the oft'-side, not such an easy 

 feat as it sounds to be. Kvpcrio crcdc I remember, after 

 a BuUingdon dinner someone essayed to drive the team 

 home. Whether the potency of the old brand was too 

 great, or the " Bol-o'-wax " chorus had been too 

 inspiriting, it was discovered when we got to Tom 

 Gate that old Taylor's well-trained team of screws had 

 performed the journey unaided by any control from the 

 box, the reins never having been handled fron; the start ! 

 It was not such teams as these that Lord Macclesfield, 

 Lord Algernon St. Maur, Mr. (lolding, Mr. Barnard, Sir 

 Walter Carew, or Mr. Fortescue used to drive on the south- 

 western road, by Whitchurch and Salisbury, on a dark, 

 cold niglit, too, in the snow and rain and wind, and time 

 having to be kept as well. No sport came amiss to Mr. 

 Barnard — hunting, shooting, fishing, drivmg, farming, 

 yachting — he not only had a try at them all, but generally 

 succeeded, not because lie was particularly adapted by 

 strength or physique for any one of them, but because he 

 thoroughly loved the country, and the sporting instinct 

 was, as it were, born with him. He was very nearly killed 

 by his best friend out shooting ; he swam the Compton 

 Lake in his clothes after a day's partridge shooting, just 



