MR. PELHAM 169 



country is favourable to scent. Half way between the 

 last-named town and Ludlow is the Brown Clee Hill, a 

 favourite resort of foxes; and a horse that can live 

 with hounds to that point on a good scenting day, from 

 Spoonbill Wood, Monk Hopton, Lightwood, Middleton 

 Gorse, Wallsbatch Gorse, or Sidbury Coppice, must be 

 in good condition, formed of the right materials, and 

 able to go in any country in England. This country 

 is not much approved of by the generality of those 

 sportsmen who belong to the Albrighton Hunt; com- 

 pared with that it is rough in the extreme. Heavy 

 land, strong fences, numerous dingles, which can only 

 be crossed at certain places, known but to a chosen few 

 of the natives, now and then deep brooks and perpen- 

 dicular banks, are formidable impediments to those 

 who are accustomed to light fences, sound ground, a 

 very few brooks, and no dingles. 



At one period a great portion of the county of Salop 

 was hunted by Mr. Pelham of Cound Hall, a gentleman 

 of high honour and amusing, eccentric devices. It was 

 his pleasure to attire his servants in white hunting- 

 coats, which, as I am informed, being cleaned with 

 pipe-clay, maintained their purity of appearance ; but 

 a fall must most assuredly have illustrated the Latin 

 quotation, color, qui albus erat, nunc est contrarius 

 albo. This gentleman has been known to amuse him- 

 self with the exercise of breaking stones, in order to 

 demonstrate the exact quantity a labourer ought to 

 operate upon in the course of the day. The numerous 

 pleasantries in which Mr. Pelham indulged were more 

 generally diversified than appertaining to the sports of 

 the field, and therefore not precisely presentable in 

 these pages. 



Another part of the country was hunted, about the 

 same period, by Sir Edward Smythe, Bart., of Acton 

 Burnell, an excellent sportsman ; but what the limits 

 were of this hunt I cannot precisely identify, nor the 

 exact time when Sir Edward commenced ; but I per- 

 fectly well remembered meeting his hounds on the 16th 



