EALrH JENISON, ESQ., FOKTIETH MASTER. 367 



Mr. Jenison gave the horse to his nephew, Captain Shafto, b}^ 

 whom he was sold to Messrs. Smith and Luck, in whose names 

 he ran on this occasion. 



At Barnet Races, August 5, 1756, Mr. Jenison's grey horse, 

 Second, beat Mr. Adam's chestnut horse, Crispin, in a oOl. 

 Plate. The odds at starting were 5 to 1 on Crispin, who won 

 the first heat, " pretty hard run " ; but the second and third 

 were won by Second. "They were very fine heats, and the 

 Knowing Ones were taken in again." During this meeting- 

 some persons " being arrived there too soon for the Diversion 

 proposed to entertain themselves with a ride to Kirk's-End 

 to pull down the famous Admiral Byng's home there, but a 

 person present, who had great interest therein, persuaded the 

 people, that his house being forfeited to the Government, was 

 designed as a present to General Blakney, which prevented 

 their journey, and fully satisfied the angry Populace for the 

 present." 



Mr. Ralph Jenison was the last commoner who filled the 

 office of Master of the Royal Buckhounds. He married on 

 November 10, 1751, Miss Suky Allen, of Durham (of whose 

 family Sir Henry Havelock-Allan, Bart., is the present repre- 

 sentative), by whom he had no issue. He had one sister, who 

 was married to Robert Shafto, Esq., of Benwell, county North- 

 umberland. Two of their sons were celebrated sportsmen, 

 proficients in all phases of athlette, Jenison Shafto having 

 been famous for riding at Newmarket 50 miles in less than 

 1 hour and 50 minutes. To his great-grandson, Colonel A. W. 

 Adair, of Heatherton Park, Wellington, Somerset, we are 

 indebted for the engraving of his ancestor, Ralph Jenison, Esq., 

 Master of the Royal Buckhounds, from the original picture by 

 Sir Joshua Reynolds, for which that celebrated artist onl}- 

 charged the modest sum of 18 guineas, for the good of his pains ; 

 a unique masterpiece (from our point of view), which is now, 

 in all probability, worth eighteen hundred times that money. It 

 is the only portrait of a Master of the Buckhounds we know 

 of in which the Master is represented in the official uniform 

 of the Royal Pack. Here we see Mr. Jenison in his hunting 



