NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



made for the relief of the Squire of Edstone's debts, 

 that nobleman was (Somervile having no children) 

 granted the reversion of the Warwickshire and Glouces- 

 tershire estates, subject always to the jointure (amount- 

 ing to iJ^6oo per annum) of the poet's mother, who lived 

 to the great age of ninety-eight. 



"Eventually," says Mr. Farquharson Sharp, ''he 

 fell a victim to the inducement to obscure the con- 

 sciousness of his troubles by heavy drinking, 'forced,' 

 as his neighbour and intimate friend, the poet William 

 Shenstone, wrote of him, ' to drink himself into pains 

 of the body to kill pains of the mind.'" Yet, although 

 intemperance undoubtedly shortened his life, as it has 

 shortened the life of many a good man, Somervile 

 seems to have kept going to the very end. "In the 

 last year of his life," it is related in the Sporting Maga- 

 zine^ above referred to, "he was entertained at dinner 

 by two hundred fellow-sportsmen in honour of his 

 prowess in the field." He died on the 19th July, 1742, 

 and was buried in Wooton Wawen Church, his own 

 parish. Until the year 1898 no tablet marked his rest- 

 ing-place, but in that year, thanks to the labours of 

 the Rev. F. T. Bramston, the vicar, a memorial, the 

 funds for which were raised by subscription, was erected 

 there. Two of his huntsmen, Jacob Boeter and John 

 Hoitt, lie buried in the churchyard, near their old 

 master. To the last survivor of these, who died, as I 

 have said, in 1802 at a very advanced age, a former 

 vicar of Wooton Wawen composed the following very 

 appropriate lines : — 



" Here Hoitt, all his sports and labours past, 

 Joins his loved master, Somervile, at last ; 

 Together went they echoing fields to try, 

 Together now in silent dust they lie. 

 Servant and lord, when once we yield our breath, 

 Huntsman and poet, are alike to Death ; 

 218 



