THE REV. ROBERT SYMONDS 63 



his shoulder. The wood was reached in due 

 course, and the " bagman " turned out, and 

 after a spin down the Vale was killed; "and 

 so," said young Bull, " the hounds had their 

 dinner and the Master got his'n, all through 

 me." 



A writer in The Sporting Magazine describes 

 the country hunted by Robert Symonds as 

 extending from Stokenchurch, on the Bucking- 

 hamshire side of Oxfordshire to Bath, but he 

 does not state how far the country was drawn 

 down the Thames Valley. In any case the 

 country could only have been hunted by 

 shifting quarters, and hunting different parts 

 at different times. 



In 1807 Mr. Symonds and Mr. Robert 

 Thornton Heysham dined together at the 

 "Old Hummums," in Covent Garden (pos- 

 sibly the very dinner of Bull's story), and at 

 the dinner Mr. Symonds sold the hounds to 

 Mr. Heysham. In 1807 Mr. Symonds rented 

 Marcham Park, probably to be able to accom- 

 modate his hunting friends. He lent it for a 

 time to his brother. Colonel Symonds, then 

 M.P. for Hereford, and afterwards put Mr. 

 Heysham into it. In 1808 Mr. Heysham 

 resold the hounds to Mr. Symonds and went 

 to reside at Hinton House, in Hampshire, 

 where he was still living in 1825, when the 



