William Somervile

William Somervile (1675–1742) was an English poet and country gentleman who lived on his estate at Edstone in Warwickshire. He was a keen fox-hunter and a magistrate, and a friend of several writers of his day.

He is remembered for The Chase (1735), a poem in blank verse on hunting, in four books, which treats hounds, kennels, the hare, the stag and the fox with a mixture of practical instruction and Miltonic and Virgilian manner. The text here is from Gilfillan's edition (Edinburgh, 1859), which spells his name Somerville.