CHESHIRE 219 



the two packs of hounds which hunt that country. Sir Belhngham 

 Graham has now given up the country, and for the future it is to 

 be under the management of Mr. Smythe Owen of Condover, with 

 the subscription now given (and as much more as can be had) ; and 

 the hounds were purchased from Sir Bellingham for six hundred 

 guineas. The servants also remain with the hounds ; and a certain 

 number of their horses were purchased from Sir Belhngham to carry 

 them. This sporting Baronet retires from public life, and is gone 

 to his seat in Yorkshire, whither the washes of all good sportsmen 

 will attend him. One of the first acts that he performed on his 

 arrival at home was to subscribe one hundred pounds per annum to 

 the York and Ainsty fox-hounds. 



On the 26th of February, Mr. Mytton and myself went to Marbury, 

 the seat of Mr. Domville Poole, situated in the best part of the 

 Cheshire country, and where we were within easy reach of the 

 Cheshire hounds on the next morning. The day, however, blasted 

 all our hopes ; and after a handsome find in one gorse, and chopping 

 a piebald fox in another, we were glad to get back to the fire-side 

 at Marbury. The next day, however, made ample amends. 



Our place of meeting was Shavington, the seat of Lord Kilmorey, 

 and we found immediately in some beautiful briar, lying in the 

 plantation. We ran this fox forty-seven minutes at a very good 

 pace, but we lost him by an unlucky accident. Some idea, however, 

 may be formed of the pace and the severity of the country, by the 

 following fact. At the second check, Mr. John Hill (brother to Sir 

 Eowland) and myself counted the field, when there were only eighteen 

 out of at least one hundred and sixty horsemen who started ; neither 

 did any more appear until we gave up the chase and turned back to 

 them. 



For our second fox we went to Combermere, the seat of my Lord 

 Combermere, and found in the same small plantation which produced 

 the fox that showed the beautiful forty-five minutes on the last day but 

 one that I was out with the Cheshire hounds, but which fox never 

 lived to return. We ran him nine minutes at a racing pace, and 

 turned him up in view. I expected to have seen him diseased, but 

 he appeared quite clean. Without suffering the hounds to worry 



