MEMOIR 



have secured him happiness independently of society 



outside his own family circle ; but many persons 



who shared his tastes and appreciated his literary 



gifts found their way to Arley, and were welcomed 



there with refined and facile hospitality. The late 



Lord Houghton and Sir Jervoise Clarke-Jervoise 



were among the most intimate members of a little 



coterie, which included Mrs. Warburton's four sisters 



— Harriot Countess of Meath, Clare Lady Hervey- 



Bathurst, Caroline the Hon. Mrs. Lascelles, and 



Jessy the Hon. Mrs. Bootle-Wilbraham. Among 



these closely attached friends there used to circulate 



verses, epigrams, charades ^ndjeux-d'' esprit enough to 



fill a volume by themselves. 



Warburton, himself, had a kindly sympathy with 



all field-sports, but his darling pursuit was fox-hunting. 



As he tells us himself in one of his best songs — 



"Fishing, though pleasant, I sing not at present, 

 Nor shooting the pheasant, nor fighting of cocks ; 

 Song shall declare a way how to drive care away, 

 Pain and despair away — hunting the fox." 



He generally rode thoroughbred horses bred by 

 himself, and bestowed incessant care upon breaking 

 and training them ; but one cannot read his poems 

 without feeling convinced that his affection was 

 bestowed as ardently upon hounds as it was upon 

 horses. It was one who rode to hunt, not one who 

 hunted to ride, that wrote the following stanza (less 

 musical than most from that pen) — 



" The fox takes precedence of all from the cover ; 

 The horse is an animal purposely bred 

 After the pack to be ridden — not over ; 



Good hounds are not rear'd to be knocked on the head." 



xxi 



