WARWICKSHIRE HUNT. 371 



conspicuous man in Warwickshire, in Mr. Corbet's time. 

 He was a valuable acquisition to the Stratford-on-Avon hunt. 

 They were the days of his youth ; and nothing loth, he yield- 

 ed to the allurements which England holds out to that 

 delight-giving period. Like the great Lord Erskine, he 

 had been a soldier and a sailor. He had racehorses and 

 hunters, and so had others. But he had — what but few 

 possess — the talent to amuse beyond his fellows. In short, 

 he was the charm of society, wheresoever he entered into it ; 

 for, although by nature a satirist, he sought but to amuse, 

 and if pain was given, the remedy was at hand by the same 

 means by which the wound was inflicted. 



For bold and good riders has Warwickshire been also 

 pre-eminent. In the time of Mr. Corbet and Lord Mid- 

 DLETON, those nonpareils, the Messrs. Canning, were in 

 their prime. Their name and fame have been handed down 

 to posterity by the pen of Nimrod, in an account he gave 

 of Mr. Corbet's hounds, but the subject will admit of 

 repetition. The weight of each of these brothers was, 

 saddle included, nearly eighteen stone, and each was a six- 

 foot man and more. But perhaps the most extraordinary 



1 Warwickshire lias alw'ays been in good repute as a sporting- 

 country ; and remarkable for producing what may be termed a breed 

 of Sportsmen, not confined to hunting, but possessing a taste for every 

 variety of field sports. To this circumstance may be attributed the 

 very excellent understanding that has existed between the gentlemen 

 and the yeomanry, and it also accounts for the strict preservation of 

 foxes for whicli it has been so long conspicuous. The yeomaniy of 

 Warwickshire, howcA'er, are for the most part an enlightened race of 

 men, and therefore superior to the selfish consideration that induces 

 some persons to destroy an animal that may afford amusement to hun- 

 dreds residing in the same county with themselves, because the possi- 

 bility exists of a lamb or chicken being their loss. But from the pen 

 of a Sportsman, too much praise cannot be bestowed on English yeo- 

 men in general, to whom hunting is so mainly indebted.. 



V. 



