WARWICKSHIRE 37 



hounds, not knowing he was so near to him ! " Thank ye, Sir," 

 said Mr. Corbet, " but my hounds will do that quite as well witJiout 

 you." 



There is an old adage, and a very true one — " the less said is the 

 soonest mended : " and I recollect an instance of its being very 

 happily exemplified by Mr. Corbet. At a time that a certain Noble 

 Earl was making an attempt to give a check to fox-hunting by 

 actions at law, not only against Tom Oldaker, huntsman to the 

 Berkeley hounds, and his whipper-in, but against his own brother, 

 Mr. Corbet received a letter from a Warwickshire farmer, who had 

 conceived himself injured by some servants wantonly riding over his 

 wheat, when that article bore a great price, on returning with their 

 masters' hacks from covert. The purport of the letter was merely 

 to tell him that he hoped it would not happen again, giving him to 

 understand, with an allusion to what had passed in the Courts of 

 Law, that he had the power to prevent his hounds coming on his 

 land. Mr. Corbet brought this letter in his pocket the next time he 

 dined at the Club, and after reading it to the members, said, " Now, 

 Gentlemen, you shall hear my answer, which I hope you will 

 approve of. It is, that I have written into Shropshire to order my 



keeper to send Mr. two brace of pheasants and a brace of hares, 



which I think is the best answer I can give to this letter." It is 

 scarcely necessary to add, that he heard no more from the farmer, 

 than usual kind inquiries after his health, and thanks to him for his 

 handsome present of game. Thirty years' experience as a master of 

 fox-hounds was not lost upon him here ; for by replying to this 

 letter he might have embarked in a wide and troubled sea. 



As a master of fox-hounds, Mr. Corbet did everything to ensure 

 the preservation of his country. Exclusive of his civility to the 

 farmers in the field, he took care to satisfy the complaints of their 

 wives at home for the loss they might sustain in their poultry ; for 

 every Sunday morning, on his road to church, he called at his kennel 

 and inquired what bills had been sent for damage done by foxes, 

 and, if any, he signed an order for their being paid. His earth- 

 stopping was also upon a very liberal scale, and in one instance is 

 worthy of being recorded. The celebrated and well-known Woolford 

 Wood had been for some time infested with fox-catchers, who took 



