DUKE OF BEAUFORT 135 



men for telling them it was a good place, and thereby inducing 

 them to come. We did nothing. 



Finding myself so young and vigorous, from seven days' fox- 

 hunting out of eight, and full two hundred miles of road work, I 

 went twenty miles on this evening to dine at Leamington with Sir 

 Loftus Otway, uncle to Mr. Otway Cave, of Stanford Hall in 

 Leicestershire, who has a good stud of hunters at Leicester in the 

 winter, and rides well over a country. "When I entered his room, 

 and saw six or eight gentlemen dressed in scarlet coats, and black 

 waistcoats,* I fancied myself gone back to those days of Elysium 

 when Mr. Corbet hunted the Warwickshire country. There is, 

 however, it appears, a club formed at Leamington, composed of 

 hunting men, at the last assembly of which no less than six-and- 

 twenty sat down to dinner at Copps' hotel arrayed in this sporting 

 garb. Leamington, we must recollect, is very well situated for 

 hounds ; it commands all the best part of Warwickshire, a great 

 many of Lord Anson's, a few of Sir Thomas Mostyn's, and one or 

 two of Mr. Musters' fixtures. 



On Friday the 4th of March, I met the Duke of Beaufort's hounds 

 at Lyddell Farm, three miles from Woodstock. Owing to the mis- 

 carriage of a letter, I had no horse at the covert, so was only a 

 looker-on. I saw, however, something that surprised me ; I saw the 

 hounds go away wath their fox from a beautiful bit of gorse, and 

 every man had a fair start. I saw about a dozen men riding well 

 with the hounds, and "all the rest," as Colonel O'Kelly said, 

 "nowhere." Until they came to the brook (which I saw Captain 

 Evans and Mr. Webb charge side by side), there was not a fence to 

 stop a woman on a pony ; yet, strange to say, the field were dispersed 

 in all directions. I saw one man in scarlet turn away to the left, 

 when the hounds were going to the right, and gallop along a newly- 

 stoned road. When I heard the clattering of his horse, I exclaimed, 

 "Surely you must be an apprentice to M'Adam ! " The fox was 

 soon lost, and the sport over for the day. 



On Saturday the 5th, I met the Warwickshire at Whichford Wood, 

 five miles from Shipston on the road to Stratford-on-Avon. We 



* The uniform of Mr. Corbet's Hunt. 



