THE FATHER OF MODERN HUNTING 



only surviving granddaughter of Mr. Christopher 

 Wren. Mr. Wren was himself a descendant of a son 

 of the great Sir Christopher, a neighbour of Somer- 

 vile's in Warwickshire, to whom the portrait had been 

 presented by the author of The Chace, It would be 

 a real kindness to have this portrait engraved again ; 

 many a sportsman would, I am convinced, be delighted 

 to have a copy of the picture of one who, for all time, 

 has enriched and adorned the chase and its literature. 



Once settled at Edstone, Somervile, who married 

 Mary Bethell, a member of the well-known Yorkshire 

 family, devoted himself eagerly to the delights of that 

 sport of which, from his earliest years, he had been 

 a devoted adherent. It is probable that his father 

 before him kept a few couples of hounds : most country 

 gentlemen did in those days, and hunted, often indis- 

 criminately, hare, fox, and occasionally deer. He had 

 excellent kennels, erected by himself, close to his resi- 

 dence, set on a little hill, just as he advises in his poem, 

 sheltered by a plantation from the north and west, and 

 with a pleasant mill-stream flowing at the foot. " He 

 kept," says a writer in the Sporting Magazine for Feb- 

 ruary, 1832, "about twelve couple of beagles, bred 

 chiefly between the small Cotswold harrier and the 

 Southern hound ; six couple of foxhounds, rather rough 

 and wire-haired ; and five couple of otter-hounds, 

 which, in the winter, made an addition to the fox- 

 hounds." The writer in the Sporting Magazine makes 

 an obvious error in the first part of this statement. It 

 should read that Somervile's harriers "were bred 

 chiefly between the small Cotswold beagle and the 

 Southern hound." In The Chace the poet makes dis- 

 tinct reference to Cotswold beagles and their merits. 

 It would be difficult to breed beagles from the harrier 

 and Southern hound. 



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