MELTON MOWBRAY.
THE Quarterly Review has an amusing and spirited article on Melton Mowbray ; not a tirade against the folly, danger, and ex- pensiveness of fox-hunting, but, on the contrary, such a glorious account of the sport, that it is not ill calculated to turn the heads of some youngsters. This is somewhat un-Quarterly like ; but the move is ,a judicious one—" it will help the sale," as LordLoNnoN- DERRY said to the Times. The article opens with some observa- tions on literature, after having thoroughly settled itself in the Army and Navy, having at last invaded fox-hunting. The power of writing and the habit of' fos-hunting, we believe, however, are very rarely ccanhined, and as yet probably coexist, in ,any perfec- tion, only in one person: that person is ISTiatiton*—a name of mightiness in the sporting world, and whom we shrewdly suspect to be the author of the article in the Quarterly, as well as of the book placed at the head of it. No one combines so much practi- cal knowledge of the craft with a certain picturesque and enthu- siastic style, which carries the reader along with him, with some- thing like the mad energy of the chase itself. After giving some history of hounds and hunting, and showing the changes in the breed, speed, and character of horses and dogs, the reviewer, as if he had just found, gives the cry, and rushes at a. slapping pace into his subject—Melton Mowbray. Of this far- famed capital of sport, we have the statistics, the manners, the ar- rangements, the society, the history, and last of all, a regular day's sport—the reviewer attending, in the character of Snob,t on a little bay horse, doing his work well to the first check ; after which he is reduced to our part of spectator.
" Melton Mowbray generally contains from two to three hundred hunters, in the hands of the most experienced grooms England can produce—the average number being ten to each sportsman residing there ; although some of those who
ride heavy, and rejoice in long purses, have from fourteen to twenty for their own use. The stud of the Earl of Plymouth has, for many years, exceeded the last-mentioned number. It may.seem strange, that one man should, under any circumstances, need so large a number of horses solely for his personal use in the held ; and it must be admitted that few countries do require it. In Leicester- shire, however, the universal practice is for each sportsman to have at least two
hunters in the field on the same day,—a practice found to be economical, as it is from exhaustion, the effect of long-continued severe work, that the health of horses is most injured. And when it is also borne in mind, that hounds are to be reached from Melton, Leicester, &c., every day in the week,—that one horse
out of six in every man's stud is, upon an average, lame, or otherwise unfit for work—and that a horse should always have five days' rest after a moderate, and at least seven or eight after a severe run with hounds,—it will seem not surprising that ten or twelve hunters should be deemed an indispensable stud for a regular Leicestershire sportsman.
" Four packs of fox-hounds divide this far-famed county of Leicester : namely, the Duke of Rutland's ; the Earl of Lonsdale's ; the Atherstone, late the Earl
of Lichfield's, afterwards Sir John Gerard's, but now Mr. Applewaite's ; and what were so long called the Quorn, now Sir Harry Goodricke's, who has built a kennel for them at Thrussinton, half way between Melton and Leicester, which situation is more in the centre of the country than Quern. The county of Leicester, however, does not of itself find room for all these packs ; parts of Butlandshirc, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Warwickshire are also in- cluded in their beat.
" Our readers are doubtless aware, that such portion of a county as is hunted by any one pack of hounds is technically called their country ; and of all the coun- tries in the world, the Quorn certainly bears the bell. This superiority arises from the peculiar nature of the soil—which, being for the most part good, is highly favourable to scent ; the immense proportion of grazing land in compa- rison with that which is ploughed; and the great size of the enclosures, many of which run to from sixty to one hundred acres each. The rarity of large woods in this part of Leicestershire is also a great recommendation to it as a hunting country ; while it abounds in furze-brakes, or gorse-covers as they are termed, for the rent of which a considerable annual sum (nearly 1,0001.) is paid to the owners. Independently of these, what are termed artificial covers are made with stakes, set at a certain height from the ground for the grass to grow over them ; but they are very inferior to the others, being difficult for hounds to draw. The subscription to the Quorn hounds has varied from two to four thousand pounds per annum ; but Sir Harry Goodricke, the present proprietor, bears the whole expense of them himself. * * • *
" The town of Melton furnishes an interesting scene on each hunting morn- ing. At rather an early hour are to be seen groups of hunters, the finest in the world, setting out in different directions to meet different packs of hounds. Each sportsman sends forward two. On one is mounted a very light but ex- tremely well-dressed lad, who returns home on his master's cover-hack, or in the dickey of his carriage, if he has happened to be carried to cover in the more luxurious fashion. On the other hunter is a personage of a very different de- scription. This is what is called the 'second horseman,'—he rides the second horse, which is to carrry his master with the hounds, after his having had one, or part of one, chase on the first. This description of servant is by no means easy to procure ; and he generally exhibits in his countenance and demeanour something like a modest assurance that he possesses qualities of importance. In short, he must have some brains in his head; be a good horseman with a light hand ; be able to ride very well to hounds ; and, above all, he must have a good eye to, and a thorough knowledge of, a country, to enable him to give his master a chance of changing his horse in a run, and not merely when it is over. Lord Sefton brought this second-horse system into fashion at the time he hunted Lei- cestershire, when Jack Raven, a light-weight, and son of his huntsman, used to ride one of his thousand-guinea hunters in his wake—if we may so express our- selves—in the field, to which he changed his seat at the first convenient oppor- tunity. The system, however, has been improved upon since then. The se- cond horseman now rides to points instead of following the hounds, and thus often meets his master at a most favourable moment, when his good steed is sinking, with one that has not been out of a trot. There is much humanity as well as comfort in this arrangement.; for at the pace hounds now go over grass countries, horses become distressed under heavy weights in a short time after the chase begins, when the scent lies well, and they are manfully ridden up to the pack.
" We wish we could gratify such of our readers as are sportsmen with the date and origin of our best packs of foxhounds, as well as the names and character of their owners ; but our limits will not allow us to go into much detail. Perhaps the oldest foxhound blood in England at this time is to be found in the kennel of the Earl of Lonsdale, at Cottesmore. The Nods, whom this family succeeded, were of ancient standing in the chase ; and the venerable peer himself has now superintended the pack for nearly fifty years, with a short interregnum of three or four years, when Sir Gilbert Heathcote had them. Lord Yarborough's kennel can likewise boast of very old blood, that pack having descended, with- out interruption, from father to son for upwards of one hundred and fifty years. The hounds, late Mr. Warde's, sold to Mr. Horlock a few years since for one thousand guineas, claim a high descent, having much of the blood of Lord Thanet's and Mr. Elwey's packs, which sve.re in the possession of the Abingdon family, at Rye*, for at least three geueratioos, and hunted Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Mr. Warde was a master of foxhounds during, as we believe, the yet unequalled period of fifty-seven years in succession. During this time he
• Mr. APPLEWAITE, who now has the .Atherstone hounds 7in Leicestershire.
I. The Meltonians call all those persons Snobs, or rural sportsmen, or provincials, who do net belong to the capital of Melton or any of its four great hunts. The reviewer professes not to understand the derivation of t he word Snob several of the Meltonians whom he mentions, who are also Cantabs, could have told him Snob es the opposite of Nob; aad means a Townsman, in opposition to Gownsman, the 'S being privy tive, /M- b Italian: thus, Nobility and 'Snobnity are in use in She Argot of the Unlyersity. sold his pack to Lord Spencer ; but reserved three couples of bitebes, from which he raised another pack, and thus never lost sight of his old blood. Earl Fitzwilliam comes very near Mr. Warde as an old master of foxhounds. Soon after Mr. Warde purchased his first pack of the Honourable Captain Bertie, this peer bought the one called the Crewe and Foley, which had been very long established in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire ; and he has kept, them ever since,—nearly fifty years. The Belvoir hounds are also a very old-established pack, but had an interval during the minority of the present Duke of Rutland, when in the hands, first of Sir Carnaby Haggerstone, and afterwards of Mr. Percival, brother of the late Lord Egmont. The Duke of Beaufort's are another justly celebrated pack, but only in possession of the second generation; they date from the time of Lord Fitzwilham's taking the Crewe and Foley hounds, which made an opening in that part of Oxfordshire which the Duke now hunts. Foxhounds have been kept at Rally Castle, Durham, by the present lord and his uncle, the late Duke of Cleveland, for more than a century, and the Marquis himself has now officiated as huntsman to his pack for nearly forty seasons. The Earl of SearboroughV late pack, now Mr. Foljambe's, hunting the Coiling- worth country, claim also an early date ; and among the other old masters of foxhounds now alive, the names of Sir Richard Puleston, Lord Middleton, the Earl of Harewood, Mr. Villebois, Mr. Ralph Lambton, Mr. Musters, and the Duke of Grafton, stand next on the list. The late Sir Thomas Mostyn was in the uninterrupted possession of foxhounds for upu+ards of forty years ; the late Mr. Chute, of Hampshire, kept them at least thirty years ; and that super-ex- cellent sportsman, Mr. Musters, has already seen out a similar period. With the exception of these, and a few others, the packs of English foxhounds have changed masters so often within the last fifty years, that it is almost impossible to trace them, either in blood or possession. However, the most valuable ken- nels of the present day are those of the Dukes of Rutland and Beaufort, Lord Fitzwilliam, the Marquis of Cleveland, Messrs. Ralph Lambton and Osbaldeston. Mr. Warde has likewise been remarkable for the great bone, size, and power of the hounds he has bred. With the exception of Lord Cleveland's and Mr. Villehois's large packs (so called in contradistinction to packs consisting of their smaller hounds, which these eminent sportsmen bring into the field on the alter- nate days), no hounds of the present day equal his in this respect. His logic on this subject is incontrovertible. You may at pleasure,' says this distinguished sportsman, diminish the size and power of the animal you wish to breed ; but it is difficult to increase or even preserve them, adhering to the same breed.' * * * Sir Richard Puleston is celebrated as a judicious breeder of hounds, and his blood has likewise been highly valued in several of our best kennels, amongst which is Lord Cleveland's, to whom Sir Richard sold a very large draft some years since. The late Mr. Corbet, a very considerable breeder of hounds, always bowed to his superior judgment in this department of the science. The most celebrated breeders, however, of this day, are the Dukes of Rutland and Beaufort, and Mr. Osbaldeston—we rather think that Mr. Osbal- deston's blood is de facto in the highest repute in the hunting world. A short time since, he had nearly forty couples of hounds at work, at one time, by one sire—his Furrier,
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