THE FITZHERBERTS. 83 



and picture to yourself the generations whicli have come 

 and gone with their loves, their hates, their feuds, their 

 ambitions, their friendships, all reduced to one common 

 level in the quiet churchyard below, whence — 



" Owners and occupants of earlier dates 

 Erom graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands, 

 And hold in mortmain still their old estates." 



Come, let us turn away, let us think of something else. 

 What is that line wavering through the meadows ? The 

 brook? The Somersal brook? What, "that stream of 

 historic disaster ? " 



"There in the bottom, see, sluggish and idle, 



Steals the dark stream where the willow tree grows ; 

 Harden your heart and catch hold of the bridle, 

 Steady him, rouse him, and over he goes." 



How easily the hackneyed lines recur to the memory 

 when the right cord is struck. 'Tis but one step from the 

 sublime to the ridiculous. 



" F for the FitzHerbert family stands, 

 They can all ride like blazes and haven't they hands?" 



What a bathos ! But it cannot be helped. It was the 



brook that did it. As to the lines, they were written by 



the licensed rhymester of the Hunt about the members of 



this wonderful riding family in 1881, and so, probably 



with equal justice, could their representative at the battle 



of Hastings have been described by the chronicler of the 



day, for such horsemanship as theirs is an hereditary gift. 



No history of the Meynell country would be complete 



which failed to allot a certain space to them, for are they 



not as Meynellian as the Meynells themselves, having the 



same blood in their veins, and have not two of them 



at different periods been termed the Fathers of the Hunt ? 



Moreover, in these days, when everything goes by the 



majority, the fact of there having been close on a dozen of 



them in the field at once, five and twenty years ago, 



ought to count for something. 



