A NOTICE OF NIMROD. 



hounds and two huntsmen, and gave greater prices for 

 his horses than had ever been known. During the 

 three seasons the young Welshman spent at the 

 Httle town of Hinkley, he gathered an almost invalu- 

 able store of information. Nor was his next cast a 

 bad one, — when he moved to Bilton Hall in Warwick- 

 shire, which, until very recently, had been the pro- 

 perty, in right of his wife, of Addison the immortal 

 essayist. Here Mr. Apperley formed that style 

 which subsequently gave so great a charm to his 

 writings ; following, as he has recorded it. Doctor 

 Johnson's advice, who recommends those " who would 

 attain an English style — familiar but not coarse, and 

 elegant but not ostentatious — to give their days and 

 nights to the volumes of Addison." But Bilton had 

 other points in its favour, at least in the eyes of the 

 new tenant. It was within reach, although often " a 

 long reach," of four of the most renowned packs of 

 fox-hounds of the day, — the Quorn, the Pytchley with 

 John Warde then at their head, Sir Thomas Mostyn's 

 (afterwards Mr. Drake's country in Oxfordshire), and 

 Mr. Corbet's in Warwickshire. He was a member of 

 the Stratford-on-Avon Club, and for many consecutive 

 seasons had, in addition to those at Stratford-on-Avon, 

 horses at Chapel House near Woodstock, and also at 



