THE CHACE- 
vivant* thus addresses him, " Perhaps, Sir, you would 
like to dine with me to-day ; I shall be happy to see you 
at seven." 
" Covers," he writes next day to some friend in his 
remote western province, "were laid for eight, the 
favourite number of our late king; and, perhaps his 
majesty never sat down to a better-dressed dinner in his 
life. To my surprise, the subject of fox-hunting was 
named but once during the evening, and that was when 
an order was given that a servant might be sent to 
inquire after a gentleman who had had a severe fall that 
morning over some timber ; and to ask, by the way, if 
Dick Christian came alive out of a ditch, in which he 
had been left with a clever young thorough-bred one on 
the top of him." The writer proceeds to describe an 
evening in which wit and music were more thought of 
than wine and presenting, in all respects, a perfect 
contrast to the old notions of a fox-hunting society: 
but we have already trespassed on delicate ground. 
It is this union of the elegant repose of life with the 
energetic sports of the field that constitutes the charm 
of Melton-Mowbray ; and who can wonder that young 
gentlemen, united by profession, should be induced to 
devote a season or two to such a course of existence ? 
We must not, however, leave the subject without 
expressing our regret that resorting, year after year, 
to this metropolis of the chace should seem at all likely 
* The writer here alluded to Lord Alvanley. 
.'3 
