THE EIGHTH DUKE OF BEAUFORT 



this was no wonder. The sixth and seventh Dukes 

 never forgot that they had been young themselves, 

 and if an Oxford man were a trifle too keen they 

 bore with him gently — indeed, it seems to have 

 passed into a tradition with the Heythrop masters 

 to be a little blind to undergraduates' failings, for 

 I can well remember the gentleness with which the 

 Duke's successors treated the too eager under- 

 graduate of my own day. 



We need not follow in detail the process by 

 which Long improved the Badminton pack. He 

 turned to Brocklesby and to Belvoir of course. 

 Possibly under his guidance the pack reached its 

 highest point of excellence about 1845. In that 

 year, when the eighth Duke came of age, " Cecil " — 

 Cornelius Tongue — visited Badminton, and left on 

 record his opinion of the kennel favourites. This 

 writer notices Flyer, a "strong, hard-looking hound 

 of the Belvoir tan." This dog united Brocklesby, 

 Belvoir and Badminton strains. Then Frankfort, 

 a badger pie, is noted as full of Badminton cha- 

 racter and type. Potentate was regarded as one 

 of the finest hounds of his day. His portrait by 

 Barraud illustrates these pages. He represented 

 in the kennel Lord Lonsdale's sort refined by Will 

 Long. 



But, famous as these hounds were, when Long, 

 after his retirement, was asked about his favourites, 

 he would speak the praises of Prophetess and Tune- 

 ful by the Warwickshire Tarquin, or of Remus, the 



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