248 HUNTING. 



most central point is Nuneaton, near the kennels, and handy for 

 all the four days a week on which these hounds take the field. 

 From Market Bosworth, all — and from Leicester, Lutterworth and 

 Coventry, nearly all — the country can be ranged. The last-named 

 is famous among cavalry quarters, and the gallant young gunner 

 (of late years Horse Artillery have taken the old cavalry barracks) 

 whom the authorities may have directed to pass his winter there 

 will have little cause to grumble, if he be fond of fox hunting. 

 Altogether the Atherstone is essentially a sporting country. 

 There is much grass, and such ploughed land as there is, even 

 in the Birmingham district, about the worst of all, is never very 

 deep or sticky. There is plenty of jumping. In the greater 

 part of this country the fences are very small, but very blind ; 

 some of it, however, is big enough for anybody ; but none is of 

 that desperate quality one meets with in some other quarters, 

 in parts of the Belvoir Vale for instance, or round Market 

 Harboro'. There are plenty of coverts of all sorts and sizes, 

 from the snug little gorse at Coton to the big woods of 

 Coombe ; and an excellent supply of foxes. 



Due south of this pleasant land lie the two Warwickshire 

 packs. The southernmost, known as the Warwickshire, has 

 a famous history, in which the names of the great John Warde, 

 and, in county story, the yet greater Mr. Corbet, stand out 

 with peculiar lustre. The latter reigned for twenty seasons, 

 from 1791 to 181 2. He was not a hard rider, but he had a 

 rare good huntsman in Will Barrow, and was perhaps the most 

 popular master of hounds that ever hunted the country. In 

 his time the principal kennels were at Stratford-on-Avon, but 

 he had others at Meriden, between Coventry and Coleshill, 

 handier for the woodlands. Lord Middleton followed Mr. 

 Corbet and managed matters for ten seasons, and then came 

 an era of short masterships till 1839 when Mr. Barnard, father 

 of the present Lord Willoughby de Broke, came into office and 

 stayed there for seventeen years. Leamington is the great 

 hunting centre, and famous not only for hunting, as it is the 

 liveliest and most sociable of all the towns wherein the disciples 



