CHAPTER V 



The Masters of Badminton and 

 the Young Heir 



WHATEVER else the Somersets were or 

 were not, they always lived and acted as 

 great English noblemen; and when the eighth Duke 

 came to the title, he succeeded two very magnifi- 

 cent persons indeed. The sixth Duke was not a 

 man who made any very particular impression on 

 the world at large. If we may believe Nimrod, 

 he did not care for town life. The fifth Duke, his 

 father, had also been a great lover of the country, 

 and it is certain that the long-established high 

 Tory principles of the Somerset family had at least 

 some share in their aloofness from London and 

 the court. Necessity and opportunity strengthened 

 their attachment to sport and led them to perfect 

 that map-nificent huntinof establishment which is so 

 identified with the Dukes of Beaufort that it would 

 be impossible to write a life of any one of them 

 without in some degree writing the history of the 

 hunt. 



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