NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 229 



ment at once prove that they were formed and nurtured in that school ; 

 and his having- married a sister of the Duke of Leeds is a voucher for my 

 assertion. For a manager of a pack of fox-hounds no man can be fitter, 

 for he is a good sportsman, a fine rider, and his very gentlemanlike 

 conduct in the field makes him highly popular in the county. 



The house of Mount Melville — built of a stone equal, to appearance, 

 to that called Portland, or Bath, and standing on an eminence com- 

 manding a view of St. Andrew's and its beautiful bay, — at the desirable 

 distance of three miles — has an imposing effect, and I consider it to 

 exhibit the handsomest exterior of all I saw in Scotland. In its interior 

 is every thing in keeping with the correct taste of the owner ; and 

 amongst its various decorations, is a magnificent picture over the side- 

 board in the dining-room, containing portraits of thirteen of Mr. Mel- 

 ville's horses and their riders, twelve of which, including himself, are 

 ridden by distinguished Meltonians, whose likenesses are admirably 

 preserved by the artist*. They are all going very well, and *' best pace," 

 over the finest part of Leicestershire, with the exception of one who has 

 a fall and is being leaped over by Mr. Maxse, by way of a foil to the 

 rest. He is supposed to be a snob, in a black collar, to distinguish him, 

 no doubt, from the elite. The library is a small room for a house of this 

 size, yet contains a lot of very valuable books, particularly in that depart- 

 ment of Hterature called the Belles Lettres ; but 1 should have passed this 

 over had it not been for one individual circumstance. There lay upon 

 the table, the last number of the New and of the Old Sporting Magazines, 

 and the difference in the appearance of them consisted in something 

 beyond the colours of the covers. The former had evidently been read 

 throughout; the leaves of the latter were still uncut. " This was not 



* Ferneley, of jMelton. 



