WARWICKSHIRE 29 



Epwell, as applied to this distinguished fox-hunter, on the Epwell 

 run — 



" How he lived to the end of this terrible day 

 The muse neither wishes, nor ought she to say : 

 That he saw it, is clear — What more could old Meynel ? — 

 And witness'd th' effects of Ins care in the kennel." 



From the great respect and regard that I, in common with all who 

 hunted with him, entertained for this veteran sportsman, I could fill 

 a volume in recounting his praise ; but as that would be a mere 

 gratification of my own feelings, and uninteresting to the generality 

 of readers, I shall proceed to the description of his hounds and his 

 establishment — only lamenting that time, the destroyer of all 

 earthly pleasures, should have deprived his friends of so kind- 

 hearted and so gentlemanlike a man, and the sporting world of such a 

 pattern to all masters of fox-hounds, as Mr. Corbet of Sundorn. On 

 his giving up his hounds, a magnificent silver vase was presented to 

 him by the Warwickshire sportsmen, in testimony of their gratitude 

 for the amusement he had afforded them. 



Mr. Corbet's hunting establishment was upon a very considerable 

 and a most respectable scale. He had always from sixty to seventy 

 couple of hunting hounds in his kennel, which he divided into a 

 pack of dogs and a pack of bitches. The advantages attending this 

 plan of separating the sexes are supposed to be — first, it prevents 

 quarrelling in the kennel ; secondly, it does away with the necessity 

 of spaying the bitches ; and, lastly, bitches being generally quicker 

 than dog hounds, it equalizes the speed of the packs. The general 

 opinion of these hounds was, that the bitches were the fastest, but 

 that the dog hounds hunted a lower scent. No man had a better 

 stud of hunters than Mr. Corbet, generally consisting of from sixteen 

 to twenty, and they were horses of the right stamp : they were well 

 bred, with substance. Instead of breeding them — a very precarious 

 mode of obtaining hunters — he annually purchased three or four 

 yearling colts from his tenants or neighbours, and, by selecting 

 those of power and bone, he seldom failed to keep up his stud, without 

 putting his hand into his pocket for them, which he must have 

 done deeply in those days — nothing in the shape of a hunter being 

 to be purchased in his neighbourhood under from one or two hundred 



