The Rev. J, Tyrwhitt Drake. 285 



worshippers of Nimrod, so devoted to their "cult," that 

 if the assertion of a reverend Fortnightly Reviewer be 

 founded on fact, any one of them would be prepared to 

 pull down any cottage of his own, if in any way it could, 

 did, or had interfered with the run of a fox. How it is 

 likely that hereditaments of this uature — motionless, 

 non-alarming — should work so serious a mischief, the 

 essayist does not trouble himself to inquire ; but with his 

 pen in his hand and his hobby well by the head, a reviewer 

 and censor momm is apt to ride at places where there is 

 no takmg off. 



Amongst the devotees above referred to, not the least 

 well-known is the rev. the Rector of Cottesbrooke, a 

 village unequalled for its sporting associations, recollec- 

 tions, and situation ; and also remarkable for the fact that 

 the thirsty soul will hunt in vain for a public-house, be 

 his sufferings ever so great. 



An old proverb tells us — a proverb as defined by Earl 

 Russell is the wit of one man and the experience of many 

 — that ^^ what is born in the bones is sure to come out 

 in the flesh;'' and in no family has the truth of this 

 dictum been more exemplified than in that of the Rev. 

 John Tyrwhitt Drake, Rector of Cottesbrooke near 

 Northampton. Who that can remember " old Squire 

 Drake,'' so long master of the Bicester hounds, and that 

 great huntress, the Hon. Mrs. Drake, aunt to the present 

 Lord Valentia, is surprised to know that no family in 

 England could turn out four such sons to cross a country 

 as their four ? The same kind ofiices performed by a 

 wolf for Romulus and Remus must have been undertaken 

 by a fox for those rev. brothers, John and Edward Drake. 

 What Graces, Lytteltons, and Studds have been between 



