MEMOIR 



future generations may still be sensible of the kindly 

 glamour which Warburton by these his lays has cast 

 over his favourite pursuit. 



" Still distant the day — yet in ages to come, 

 When the gorse is uprooted, the foxhound is dumb, 

 May verse make immortal the deeds of the field, 

 And the shape of each steed be on canvas reveal'd." 



The spirit and elegance of Warburton's verses 

 found too many who appreciated them that they 

 should be allowed to perish. First collected and 

 published in 1834 under the title ol Hunting Songs, 

 Ballads, &c., fresh ones appeared in each subse- 

 quent edition until the eighth in 1887. Besides 

 this collection, Warburton published 'Tliree Hunting 

 Songs (1855), A Looking- Glass for Landlords (1875), 

 Poems, Epigrams, and Sonnets (1877), Songs and Verses 

 on Sporting Subjects (1879), T'wenty-'T'wo Sonnets (1883), 

 most of which are included in the present edition. 



His later years were darkened by a grievous 

 affliction. No more might his eye rest lovingly on 

 the shapes of horse and hound, nor be gladdened by 

 the gleam of scarlet in the autumn woodland, nor 

 could he seek the solace which he knew so well how 

 to find in his library. For seventeen long years 

 Warburton was stone-blind from glaucoma. It was 

 then a pathetic sight to see him still moving about 

 through the beautiful garden he had created and 

 the landscape which he had embellished. Moving 

 briskly, too ; for he used to take as his guide a life- 

 long friend, an aged gardener called Peter Burgess, 

 who wore a leathern belt upon which his master 

 kept a firm hold as they wandered through the 



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