OKIGIN OF FOX-HUNTING. 215 



part of the now Burton Hunt, and part of North Not- 

 tinghamshire ; and he used to go down into both those 

 districts for a month at a time to hunt the wood- 

 lands. There were, as he told his grandson when he 

 began hunting, only three or four fences between Horn- 

 castle and Brigg, a distance of at least thirty miles. 



Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt kept harriers at his Manor 

 House of Aylsby, at the foot of the Lincolnshire Wolds, 

 before he turned them into fox-hounds. A barn at 

 Aylsby was formerly known as the "Kennels." The 

 Aylsby estate has passed, in the female line, into the 

 Oxfordshire family of the Tyrwhitt Drakes, who are so 

 well known as masters of hounds, and first-rate sports- 

 men ; while a descendant of Squire Vyner, of Lincoln- 

 shire, has, within the last twenty years, been a master of 

 fox-hounds in Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Mr. 

 Meyneri, the father of modern fox-hunting, and founder 

 of the Quorn Hunt, formed his pack chiefly of drafts 

 from the Brocklesby. 



Between the period that fox-hunting superseded hare- 

 hunting in the estimation of country squires, and that 

 when the celebrated Mr. Meynell reduced it to a science, 

 and prepared the way for making hunting in Leicester- 

 shire almost an aristocratic institution, a great change 

 took place in the breed of the hounds and horses, and 

 in the style of horsemanship. Under the old system, 

 the hounds were taken out before light to hunt back by 

 his drag the fox who had been foraging all night, and 

 set on him as he lay above his stopped-earth, before he 

 had digested his meal of rats or rabbits. The breed of 

 hounds partook more of the long-eared, dew-lapped, 

 heavy, crock-kneed southern hound, or of the blood- 

 hound. Well-bred horses, too, were less plentiful than 

 they are now. 



