WILLIAM SOMERVILLE 121 



the east, the Heythrop on the south, and Earl Fitz- 

 hardinge's Broadway country joins in the vicinity of 

 Chipping Campden and Moreton-in-the-Marsh, with a 

 small portion of country not hunted : the Worcester- 

 shire forms the western boundary. The North Warwick- 

 shire reaches from Hill Moreton on the east, where it 

 is joined by the Pytchley, to Castle Bromwich, within 

 five miles of Birmingham ; the Atherstone is situated on 

 the north and north-east; and the Worcestershire is the 

 nearest on the West, where there is a narrow continua- 

 tion of country not hunted. 



Warwickshire is celebrated as the birthplace of the 

 inimitable poet Somerville ; not forgetting also that 

 Shakespeare drew his first breath in the same county. 

 A greater compliment could not have been paid to the 

 author of The Chase than an observation made by Earl 

 Fitzhardinge in the spring of 1852, on the occasion of 

 his lordship being presented with a superb piece of 

 plate in testimony of the subscribers' appreciation of 

 the noble lord's generosity in maintaining a pack of 

 fox-hounds for hunting the Berkeley and Cheltenham 

 countries. Earl Fitzhardinge having acknowledged 

 the testimonial and made some remarks on the duties 

 of masters of hounds, traced his ardent love of the 

 sport to his perusal, when a boy, of Somerville 's poem 

 of The Chase. It would be a fortunate circumstance if 

 every young nobleman and gentleman of property were 

 to follow his lordship's example and derive a similar 

 impulse from the poet's effusions. Somerville's resi- 

 dence was at Edstone, close to the well-known fox- 

 covert Austywood, in the parish of Wotton Wawen, 

 where he was buried in 1742, aged fifty ; and the 

 following letter from him to Mr. Mackenzie at Wotton 

 is characteristic of the customs of those days. 



" Sip., 



I am very sorry I must deny myself the pleasure 

 of your good company to-morrow. I was' to-day with 

 my Lord Coventry's harriers, and I know Ball will not 



