84 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



As far back as the time of the Father of Foxhunting, 

 the great Hugo Meynell himself, there is a set of verses 

 describing a run with that worthy, in which these lines 

 occur — 



"And, screwing behind him, there's FitzHerbert Dick, 

 His horse half-done-up, looking sharp for a nick." 



But, nick or no nick, he was forward enough, for there 

 were but three others in front of him, which is no bad 

 place for an old man. As these lines were written about 

 the beginning of the last century, and as the squire died 

 full of years in 1806, he is fairly entitled to the epithet. 

 It seems unlucky for him, in the eyes of posterity, that his 

 name should have been Dick, with its obvious rhyme, for 

 once more there occurs — 



"The parent of our hunt, old Dick, 

 We'll greet with cordial glee ; 

 The' now he chiefly makes a nick, 

 That he more sport may see." 



By this time he was evidently old enough to have 

 arrived at the dignity of being Father of the Hunt No. 1 , 

 Sir William of Tissington being No. 2, nearly a century 

 later. 



This Richard FitzHerbert was the last Squire of 

 Somersal in the direct line, the Tissington ones having 

 branched off in the middle of the fifteenth century, having 

 acquired Tissington by marriage with Margaret Francis. 

 Richard FitzHerbert was succeeded by his sister, who 

 only survived him a few years. Till then, Somersal- 

 Herbert had been held by a FitzHerbert without a break 

 from about 1200. At Miss FitzHerbert's death it went 

 to her nephew, the Rev. Roger Jackson, who sold it. 

 Lord Vernon bought most of it, but Lord St. Helens, 

 the younger brother of Sir William, the first baronet, 

 whose mother was Mary Meynell, sister of Hugo Mey- 

 nell, the father of fox-hunting, purchased the Hall and 

 the land immediately surrounding it, thus preserving the 

 cradle of his race for his family. He never married,. 



