THE WARWICKSHIRE HOUNDS. 



Somerville, the 

 Warwickshire 

 Huntinar Poet. 



• The Chase." 



Early Days. shall have provided satisfaction to myself and I trust 

 some little entertainment to my readers. As the native 

 county of the immortal William Shakespeare, War- 

 wickshire is known wherever the language, to the 

 literature of which he is sdch an adornment, is spoken, 

 and thousands each year visit his birthplace and tomb 

 at Stratford-upon-Avon. Within a few miles of the rest- 

 ingplaceof our national poet is the burial place of another, 

 who, although of course far behind Shakespeare as a 

 poet, is conspicuous in the history of the chase, and 

 whom Warwickshire as a hunting county may account 

 itself proud to possess. I refer to Somerville, who in 

 his well-known poem, ** The Chase," displays a know- 

 ledge of the art of hunting which may be looked upon 

 as remarkable, considering that he wrote^before the 

 chase of the fox had become an established national 

 pastime. He was born in 1692, and lived at Edstone, 

 near Wootton Wawen, in Warwickshire. It is probable 

 that " The Chase" was written during the reign of the 

 second George. Not only must he have had a practical 

 acquaintance with the fox-hunt, but from certain 

 lines in the poem, it would appear that the breed- 

 ing of hounds to follow the fox alone had come into 

 vogue. He says : — 



A diff'rent hound for ev'ry diff'rent chase 

 Select with judgment ; nor the timorous hare 

 O'ei matched destroy. 



This would make those who place the commence- 

 ment of thus breeding hounds in 1750, to have 

 under-estimated the age of the custom. Somerville 

 died in 1742, but although buried in his parish church 

 no monument maiks the spot. It is uncertain whether 

 we can consider him as the first master of fox-hounds in 

 Warwickshire or not. That he hunted hounds is un- 

 doubted, from the tombstone of his huntsman, J. Hoilt, 

 His Huntsman, in Wootton Wawen churchyard. Hoilt died in 1802 

 at the age of 85, and as the stone states that he had 

 been huntsman to Somerville and others nearly 70 years. 



