THE WARWICKSHIRE. 303 



horses, m stable — we are all alike ready, and willing, to ride as 

 near hounds as we dare. I have seen bright pictures — have by 

 force of circumstances lived actually among art, doing my very 

 best to hide my shameful love of the practical and unsesthetic 

 by crushing out all reference to the athletic and venatic (a 

 word I beg leave to borrow for the nonce). The ruling spirit 

 would no doubt come out at times, with the same vulgar 

 impromptu that forced Leech's stableboy-footman to implore 

 the jelly mould to " who ! who ! !" But this by the bye — and 

 without argument as to whether art belongs neither to killing a 

 fox nor to riding to hounds, whether there is no poetry to be 

 found in the open air nor romance in the grand ecstasy of a 

 dart across country. Pshaw ! we shall prove it in an hour or 

 two — or my pen shall cease here. We are off to the island, in 

 the soft sea of the Warwickshire grass. The bright picture to 

 awakening eyes has been the leather clo' airing before the fire 

 — types more or less snowy (as our valet has been dutiful or 

 festive in the week rung out) of the ups and downs of climate, 

 the ins and outs of Weathergage Cottage. Vita brevis, ars 

 longa — which may be literally translated " As pants the heart 

 for cooling streams." The Braunston brook is an old time 

 receptacle for the heated in the chase, and is all ready for 

 to-day. Now for the covert. 



Thursday evening. — A magnificent day's sport — and only 

 the usual meagre margin left me for a Thursday post. Hounds 

 have scarcely run harder this year (the day through). If 

 Hemplow's hill coverts gave us yesterday's sport, Shuckburgh's 

 wooded heights did still better to-day. Meet 11.30 — and 

 consequently more people late than ever. Hounds, the lady 

 pack — and even sharper than, while quite as shapely as, their 

 handsome brothers. At any rate they ran right away from 

 their field this morning — fair/// left them (as I will show, fast 

 as my pen can gallop for these remaining minutes). Found 

 almost at once in Shuckburgh Wood, hunted quietly to its 

 Prior's Marston end — and there was Reynard to be seen 

 slipping off across the grass beneath. Lord Willoughby had 



