CHARBOROUGH PARK 179 



together when the soil did not suit game, and, therefore, at such 

 a place as Charborough, where the soil was most favourable to 

 game, the fact of the show of game and foxes was more easily 

 attainable at Charborough Park than at Berkeley Castle. All 

 that was required was, that the squire of the one should be as 

 resolute to accomplish it as the peer of the other. On one of 

 the days Mr. Drax was out at Berkeley we killed nine foxes. To 

 be sure, there is this to be said, that the number of acres at 

 Berkeley Castle outstretch those at Charborough Park ; but, if 

 Charborough is the extent I have always understood it to be, 

 and, in fact, have seen it to be, there is no reason why Mr. Drax 

 should not have any quantity of game and foxes on his immediate 

 acres. A fox certainly requires a wider circle of friends, and 

 perhaps the Castle, from hereditary respect for the battlements, 

 had the advantage ; but the hare and pheasant never have and 

 do not require more friends than the lord of the soil, as, in all 

 counties, all men kill whatever Heaven sends on their lands, and 

 the proprietor of thirty acres, down to an acre and a half, 

 invariably deems himself right in exterminating all that comes 

 within his reach, without contributing an egg or leveret to the 

 stock of his neighbours. When I first knew Mr. Drax he had a 

 lot of men in his employ called gamekeepers, but, on the whole 

 extent of his acreage, I could not have gone out and killed 

 twenty head of pheasants and hares ; and this in the face of my 

 father's assertion, that I remember hearing as a boy, " that, take 

 it in any way, Charborough Park,"" in the time of my grandmother 

 (who was a Miss Drax), " was famed above all other places for 

 its variety of sporting attractions." I have no hesitation in 

 asserting that, excepting Heron Court, Lord Malmsbury's seat, 

 Charborough Park is the best place for all sorts of sport I ever 

 saw. In fact, Charborough by its variety surpasses Heron Court, 

 in having excellent trout fishing, and red and fallow deer, fox- 

 hunting and coursing, as well as, with good management, the 

 best of wild-fowl shooting. So extensive are the wilds of Char- 

 borough, that the wild-fowl for the gun do not interfere with 

 the fowl of the decoy ; on the contrary, the gun, by driving to 



