2o6 CENTURY OF ENGLISH FOX-HUNTING 



recorded in verse were not so worthy of fame as the 

 poet would have us to believe. Besides, these poems, 

 with few exceptions, were published for private circu- 

 lation amongst the local hunting people, and are of 

 little interest to the general public. I have, there- 

 fore, made the diaries of M.F.H.'s and other recog- 

 nised sportsmen the fountain-heads of my informa- 

 tion, and in my selection have given prominence to 

 " time and distance," though I candidly own that I 

 prefer forty minutes on the grass without a check to 

 a long, slow hunting run. However, I must now cut 

 the cackle and come to the horses, hounds, and foxes. 

 Referring to the beginning of the century, I find 

 that my earliest information relates to the Warwick- 

 shire Hunt, then ruled over by Mr. J. Corbet. On 

 December loth, 1801, the meet was at Compton 

 Wyngate House, Lord Northampton's residence, and 

 after hounds had accounted for a ringing fox in the 

 small covert near to the house, a second fox was 

 found in the gorse by the side of Epwell White 

 House. He immediately went away straight over 

 the rabbit warren, but apparently changing his mind, 

 took a circle round Lord Northampton's into Tysoe 

 Field, and returned almost to the place where he was 

 found. Failing to find sanctuary, he made away for 

 Shutford Hill, afterwards pointing to Mrs. Childe's, 

 of Upton, which he left on the right hand, and went 

 forward for Tadmarton ; from thence over the large 

 open fields to Lord Guildford's, and right on to 

 Banbury town. Here he lay down in a garden, but 



