CHESHIRE 225 



kennel, and always sent them home in better tune than he received 

 them, he generally called him " my huntsman Dick." Eiding over 

 to Emral one day, soon after Sir Eichard had been having a fall of 

 timber, which opened to the view his parish church, Mr. Leech 

 remarked, that he could not think what had made his huntsman 

 so well behaved lately, but, said he, " I've found it out ; he does 

 now sometimes get a sight of the church." Though never profane, 

 jVLr. Leech would have his joke. He was once asked if he ever went 

 to church? " Oh yes," answered he, " hut I am no church glutton." 



Inheriting a sound constitution, rising early in the morning, 

 pursuing the sports of the field, and generally of temperate habits, 

 Mr. Leech lived to (I think) the age of eighty-six ; and as a proof 

 that the charms of conversation and the pleasures of a social glass 

 lived as long as he did, it is only necessary to observe, that, the 

 year before he died, he sat down to dinner with a friend of his at 

 Chester at one o'clock in the afternoon, and at tw^o o'clock the next 

 morning he got into his carriage to go home. 



Mr. Leech is gone ; and with him is gone his sort of English 

 gentleman. He spent his money in the country from which he 

 received it ; he kept a most hospitable house ; was a sincere friend 

 and a most entertaining companion ; and for these reasons, he never 

 spoke ill of any man : he was ever in good humour ; and in all his 

 jokes he never forgot the wholesome lesson of the Satirist — 



" Who, for the poor renown of being smart. 



Would leave a sting within a brother's heart ? " 



The Cheshire farmers are good preservers of foxes, and a blank in 

 their gorse coverts is a rarity. 



On "Wednesday the 1st of March, Mr. Mytton and myself took 

 leave of Mr. Domville Poole, and met Sir Eichard Puleston's hounds 

 at the kennel. Our first fox did nothing for us, but we had a beauti- 

 ful forty-five minutes with our second, and killed in good style. 

 Since I have known what hunting is, I never saw hounds go faster 

 over a ploughed country than they did on this day, and he must 

 have been a good fox to have stood so long. Many years have 

 passed over my head since I hunted with these hounds, and I was 



