the great friend of Mr. Meynell, previously to his living with Mr. Corbet, and he was the only person about his premises that he would suffer to ride any of the horses he (Mr. Childe) rode himself-always saying of him, that he was the "only servant he ever had, or knew, fit to trust with his horses' mouths, having so gentle and good a hand on his bridle." This was true to the letter; there could not be a finer horseman over a country than Barrow, nor one with a finer hand; yet, strange to say, he rode almost all his horses in martingales, which, from their length, the rings reaching to the jaw-he said "merely steadied their heads" And he had another peculiarity in the saddle. When trotting along the road with his hounds, he always held his whip and reins in his right hand, whilst the left arm hung dangling by his side, as though there was no life in it; and which peculiarity was honoured with imitation by a conceited, but hard-riding farmer in the hunt.

I read these lines on poor Barrow's tombstone in the Sundorne parish church-yard :

"Of this world's pleasure I have had my share;

For few the sorrows I was doomed to bear;

How oft I have enjoyed the noble chase

Of hounds and foxes, each striving for the race!

But the knell of death calls me away;

So, sportsmen, farewell! I must obey."

I cannot say much for the poetry, and still less for the sense of this epitaph, and I wonder a better had not been substituted by some one. We do not enjoy "the chase of hounds," but of foxes with hounds. Again, did the fates decree, that Will Barrow should die from a fall, he should have died in the service of fox-hounds, with which, for so many years, he lived so well, and, like the old fellow-servant of his younger days-the noted Will Moody, the brush of their last fox should have waved amongst his funeral plumes,

For could we choose the time, and choose aright,
"Tis best to die, our honour at its height.

To return to Mr. Corbet. He appeared in my eyes to possess all the qualities requisite to make a man popular in the character of a master of fox-hounds. In the first place, he was, in his general demeanour, a fine specimen of the thorough English gentleman, which goes a great way, under any circumstances, towards creating respect and esteem; and when joined with a frank and courteous manner, the result is no longer doubtful. Nor was it with the gentlemen sportsmen in his county alone that Mr. Corbet was in the highest esteem. The kind word, the nod of recognition at the cover's side were never withheld by him to the yeomen and farmers who attended his hounds in that sporting

county; and with that class of persons he stood-if I may be allowed the expression on the very pinnacle of esteem. His name and fame will not be forgotten in Warwickshire for at least another generation to

come.

When speaking of Mr. Corbet, as a sportsman, I have always been rather at a loss for a true estimation of him in that character. In breeding hounds he had great advantages. His own extensive estates in one of the most sporting counties in Great Britain, together with those. of his neighbours, afforded him the best of walks for his puppies, and he bred to a great extent. Still I have myself heard him admit that in proportion to relative numbers, he could not succeed so well as his neighbour (afterwards his son-in-law), Sir Richard Puleston, succeeded. He gave him credit for bringing into the field a sort of hound fit for any country, and of a peculiarly marked character, which I always considered Sir Richard's sort to have been. They were closer in their form, but with length, where length is required; more symmetrical in fact; more after the fashion of Mr. Osbaldeston's Furrier and Vaulter sorts than Mr. Corbet's were. The latter (Mr. Corbet's) were said to have suffered to a certain extent from their owner too long persevering in the in-and-in system of breeding the Trojan blood, as it was called; but from the following character of the parent tree, we cannot wonder at the high value the possessor of it put upon its fruit.

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The history of the hound Trojan is an extraordinary one, from his birth to his death. It appears Mr. Corbet applied to his brother, Col. Andrew Corbet, whom I well remember amongst the Northamptonshire sportsmen of by-gone days, to purchase him a pack of harriers, which he did at Tattersall's; and amongst them was a bitch called Tidings (a real harrier's name, by the bye), who, being so excellent in her work, and evidently a dwarf fox-hound, was kept when the pack was sold, and Mr. Corbet became a master of foxhounds. She was sent to the late Earl Spencer's kennel at Pytchley, and put to hound called Trueboy, and the produce was the celebrated Trojan. Trojan, however, had like to have been drafted, and for a very singular reason, typical, no doubt, of his excellence. He would not look at a hare, to which Mr. Corbet at that period entered his puppies, and was for that reason considered slack, and unlikely to enter well to his own more noble game. There is every reason to believe, from the well authenticated anecdotes related of him, that a more perfect fox-hound than Trojan never hunted a fox; and it is asserted, with reference to his constitution-one of the inducements, no doubt, to persevere with his blood-that from the period of his being entered, which was in 1780, until the end of the season, 1788, he was never lame, nor did he ever remain in his kennel when it was his turn to hunt. This, it will be seen, was most extraordinary ;-not only that he should have escaped the usual trifling accidents from thorns, &c,

but from his great leaping powers, which I shall presently allude to. To sum up his character, however, it is said of him that in his work he was, in every sense of the term, to be depended upon. His speed enabled him to be at the head to guide the pack; he could also hunt over a dry fallow or a road, like a southern harrier; and his stoutness was such that he always came home, after the hardest days, with his stern up, fresh and gay to the last.

But his leaping powers! I will relate what has been recorded of them, and on indisputable authority :

In his second year's hunting, Mr. Corbet's hounds found a fox at Chillington, in Staffordshire, and ran him to Weston, (Lord Bradford's,) whence he returned to Chillington, leaping the wall into the park, at that time entire and of great height. The pack carried the scent to the spot, when Trojan at once took the wall, whilst the rest of the pack, who attempted it, fell backwards. The field rode for the gate, and when they got into the park, Trojan was found at bay with his fox, which he had hunted into a drain.

A similar exploit was performed by the same hound in the sixth year of his hunting. A fox broke from the Perry woods, near Birmingham, and, leaping the high brick wall into Lord Dartmouth's park, was followed by Trojan only. The field, with the rest of the pack, entered the park by the gate, when Trojan was seen carrying the scent across it, and after being joined by the pack, the wall again presented itself. As he had leaped into the park, Trojan leaped out of it, whilst the rest of the pack, attempting to follow his example, fell backwards as before. The field had again to ride for the gate; and when they arrived in the London and Birmingham turnpike road, (where the same wall, in statu quo, is now to be seen,) they were informed that one hound (Trojan of course) had gone across it with a scent, into a wood hard by, in which, on entering it, Trojan was heard carrying on the scent by himself; and, on the pack joining cry, a capital run was the result; the fox having been killed between Halesowen and Hagley in Worces tershire, having been found in Staffordshire, and run through part of Warwickshire. Stephen Goodall hunted them on this day, and he always said that no fox could go above ground on anything like a hunting day, where Trojan could not follow him.

That such a hard running hound as this should continue in work to his eighth season is far more than could have been expected from him; but so it was; and it was in the month of January, 1788, that after a most severe day in which he had distinguished himself, but had showed symptoms of nature having cried "enough," that Mr. Corbet ordered that Trojan should never hunt again.

This history of Trojan-at all events the material points of it, was given to me by a great friend and contemporary of Mr. Corbet, and

therefore it can be relied upon. The only doubtful part of it is, and this point has been disputed, whether or not there was such a hound as True-boy in the late Earl Spencer's kennel at the period alluded tosay 1779, as Trojan was whelped in 1780. It is asserted there was not; and the circumstance gave rise to a report that Trojan came astray to the Sundorne kennel. Should the present Earl Spencer deign to throw his eye over these pages, he might unravel the mystery. It would be interesting at this present period of time to know something of Trueboy, if such a hound there was.

When Mr. Corbet hunted Warwickshire, he had a kennel at Meriden, from which he hunted what was called the Meriden country, now divided and subdivided; and in which excellent sport was shown in the spring; for although chiefly a woodland county, it holds a capital scent for the most part, and the foxes were proverbially stout.

The hunt-club at Stratford-on-Avon, where the kennels were at the time I have alluded to, was upon a large scale; and as I had the honour to belong to it for several years, I can take upon myself to say, a more harmonious one never existed anywhere. The "Father of the Trojans" dined with the members every Thursday, and not a week passed that some of them were not entertained by him at Clopton House, within a mile of the town where he lived, in the style suitable to his station in life. Peace to his ashes! we shall never see a better Master of Hounds, and society calls for no better man.

THE LATE LORD MIDDLETON.

Lord Middleton had one of the essentials to hunting a country. He had an inexhaustible purse, and he was by no means shy of dipping into it.

In his conduct towards Mr. Corbet, in the purchase of his hounds, the liberal spirit of the British nobleman was manifest. The price was, I think, fifteen hundred pounds, for which sum he sent his cheque, saying he considered the hounds to be a gift.

I never could quite satisfy myself as to whether Lord Middleton had acquired that knowledge of hounds and hunting which his experience, both as a master and amateur, ought to have enabled him to attain. I think he was a fine judge of the animal dog generally, and of the spaniel especially; for I have never seen such as he bred and possessed; I also think he had an eye to most of the essential points in hounds, but it was too much attracted to legs and feet, to the disregard of other points. That elegance of neck and shoulder, that strength of thigh, that protuberant bodily muscle, which some of the modern packs that I could name exhibit, were far from prevailing features in his pack: and, but for their splendid condition,-and such I admit was apparent to a great degree, particularly in Harry Jackson's time,-the want of them would have

NO. V.-VOL. I.-NEW SERIES.

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been more conspicuous than it was. And one proof of this condition, many of your readers must have read in the description I gave of a run they had in the year 1825, the greater part of which I witnessed, when they fairly ran away from a well-mounted field of one hundred and fifty horsemen three only excepted-running their fox to ground at Ditchley in Oxfordshire, at the end of seventeen miles, as the crow would fly, and over dreadfully severe ground both for horses and hounds. Strange to say, neither huntsmen nor whips could get near the pack towards last, and they were taken to the Duke of Beaufort's kennel, at Heythrop for the night.

One of the most unfortunate acts committed by Lord Middleton was giving up that fine woodland country, the Meriden, in which we saw such capital sport in Mr. Corbet's time, in the spring. I have yet to see better foxes than these woodlands produced, or better runs at that season of the year. It has since been attempted to make a country of these woodlands, together with a part of what is called the Stratford country; but a man must be an enthusiast in fox-hunting to hunt rough woodlands all the year round. His lordship also gave up more fine country on the Combe (Lord Craven's) and Dunchurch side which Mr. Corbet thought much of in the spring, and where he occasionally had the pleasure to see some members of all the neighbouring hunts, including those of the Quorn, Belvoir, &c.

Harry Jackson, whom I previously knew, when first whip to Sam. Lawley, with Lord Vernon's hounds, hunted Lord Middleton's pack for several seasons, on his lordship succeeding Mr. Corbet in Warwickshire. I considered him an excellent kennel-huntsman, but slow and slack in the field, so much so, that I have more than once heard Lord Middleton tell him, "he was thinking more of his dinner than finding his second fox." He was latterly supplanted by Tom. Smith, his lordship's first whip, who was a favourite servant of his noble master,

As my old and esteemed friend the late Mr. West, of Alscot Park, of no small racing celebrity, is now in his grave, I may mention a little incident connected with this run. It was known that a few Melton men would be out, and as I was dining at Alscot the preceding evening, I was thus addressed by Mr. West. 'My old friend Musgrave (Sir James, one of the oldest of the Meltonians) holds Warwick shire cheap. Now you shall ride Opodeldoc (formerly one of his race horses, and made into a capital hunter by his whipper-in to his harriers) on condition that you try to beat Musgrave." Glad to save my own stable, and pleased to have such a mount, I at once promised to do what I knew I could not do-namely, to beat one of the best men of his day over a country. Strange, however, to say, Sir James and myself both pulled up in the same large field, be having the lead at the time, and we rode to Stratford together, Opodeldoc being unable to rise at a low sheep hurdle; and Sir James's horse, not a whit better. I told the baronet of it last year, at Melton, and it caused him to smile at the jealousy as well as amour propre of his old Warwickshire friend.