wn, this used to be the best grass country in the V.W.H., but
nowadays you must "look before you leap." With a good fox, however,
hounds may take you into the best of the old Berkshire vale, and
perhaps right up to the Swindon Hills. Round Water-Eaton is a fine grass
country, good enough for anybody; but the increase of wire is becoming
more and more difficult to combat in this as in other grazing districts
of England.

The very varied bill of fare we have briefly sketched for a man hunting
from Cirencester may include an occasional Wednesday with the Heythrop
at "Bradwell Grove." It is not possible to reach the choicest part of
this pleasant country by road from Cirencester, but some of the best of
the stone-wall country of the Cotswold tableland is included in the
Heythrop domain. Everybody who has been brought up to hunting has heard
of "Jem Hills and Bradwell Grove": rare gallops this celebrated huntsman
used to show over the wolds in days gone by; and on a good scenting day
it requires a quick horse to live with these hounds. A fast and
well-bred pack, established more than sixty years ago, they have been
admirably presided over by Mr. Albert Brassey for close on a quarter of
a century. Several pleasant vales intersect this country, notably the
Bourton and the Gawcombe Vale; and there is excellent grass round
Moreton-in-the-Marsh. As, however, the grass country of the Heythrop is
too far from Cirencester to be reached by road, it hardly comes within
our scope.

If hunting is doomed to extinction in the Midlands, owing to the growth
of barbed wire, it is exceedingly unlikely ever to die out in the
neighbourhood of Cirencester; for there is so much poor, unprofitable
land on the Cotswold tableland and in the Braydon district that barbed
wire and other evils of civilisation are not likely to interfere to
deprive us of our national sport; Hunting men have but to be true to
themselves, and avoid doing unnecessary damage, to see the sport carried
on in the twentieth century as it has been in the past. If we conform to
the unwritten laws of the chase, and pay for the damage we do, there
will be no fear of fox-hunting dying out. England will be "Merrie
England" still, even in the twentieth century; the glorious pastime,
sole relic of the days of chivalry, will continue among us, cheering the
life in our quiet country villages through the gloomy winter months;--if
only we be true to ourselves, and do our uttermost to furth