YORKSHIRE 297 



and his party returned to Newton House, having had a trot of nearly 

 twenty miles in rain and darkness. 



Thursday, 21st. — Sir Bellingham Graham returned home, but I 

 remained at Newton House, intending to quit the next day for 

 Melton Mowbray. The Glasgow mail would have picked me up at 

 his Lordship's gates at five o'clock in the evening, and I should 

 have been in very good time for the Quorn hounds the next morning, 

 having had the promise of a mount for that day and the next. The 

 coach, however, was full, so that speculation failed. 



This was a day of note in the annals of fox-hunting. It produced 

 that brilliant run with Lord Anson's hounds from Enderby, in 

 Leicestershire, the . seat of Mr. Loraine Smith. Young Peyton, as 

 he is called, went to the end of it ; but his famous mare Edgecot 

 paid the forfeit of her life ; and I believe Mr. Braithwaite likewise 

 saw him killed. Lord Anson was also near doing the same at the 

 expense of two tired and one dead horse ; but it was awfully severe. 

 The finish, I am told, was grand, as the death took place in the castle 

 at Ashby de la Zouch, in Derbyshire, fifteen miles point blank from 

 Enderby — best pace all the iva/j. I saw Mr. Loraine Smith in 

 London in the spring, and he told me he had built a triumphal arch 

 on the spot which produced so gallant a fox, and a run well deserving 

 of a record beyond the day. 



There is, generally speaking, something irresistibly amusing in the 

 active workings of immoderate zeal ; and particularly so when the 

 object in pursuit is of an agreeable nature, and one with which we 

 ourselves can sympathize. The truth of this will, I think, be 

 exemplified in a short account I am enabled to give of Mr. Matthew 

 Wilkinson, as a master of fox-hounds and a sportsman — in the style 

 and character of the Old School. 



Mr. Matthew Wilkinson is the youngest of three brothers, two of 

 whom are now alive and are the representatives of a family long 

 seated in the county of Durham, and possessing property amount- 

 ing, as I was informed, to somewhat better than 2,000Z. per annum 

 in land. To distinguish their Christian names requires a short 

 preface. All who are acquainted with the customs and m.anners of 

 the northern counties of this Island are aw^are that in them John is 

 called Johnny; William, Wilhj ; Thomas, Tommy ; Matthew, Matty ; 



