BEAUFORT HUNT: PAST AND PRESENT. 55 



inscribed in that list we request your acceptance of the picture, as a 

 token of the respect felt towards you by every class of those who, 

 whether as members of the Beaufort Hunt, or as owners or occupiers 

 of land comprised within the hunt, or merely as visitors occasionally 

 hunting with your hounds, appreciate the liberal and sportsmanlike 

 manner in which you have hunted this country since your father's 

 death, and desire to offer you some acknowledgment of your courtesy 

 and liberality. 



" It has been a great additional pleasure to the subscribers, since 

 the idea of presenting you with a portrait of yourself was first started, 

 to have been able to include in the same picture a portrait of the 

 Duchess, not only because the picture will thus, we feel sure, be more 

 highly prized by you, but also because it will thus bear witness to 

 the esteem which is so sincerely felt towards Her Grace personally 

 by all her neighbours. 



" We hope that this picture will serve to remind future owners 

 of Badminton of the respect and affection with which their ancestors 

 were regarded by those amongst whom they lived. 



" We are, dear Duke of Beaufort, 



Yours very truly, 



" Edw. D. Bucknall Estcourt, 

 " C. W. Miles. 

 " To His Grace the Duke of Beaufort, etc." 



" Badminton, January, 1864. 



" My dear Mr. Estcourt, — It is difficult to express sufficiently 

 all I feel on the subject of your and Colonel Miles's most kind and 

 flattering letter, conveying to me in the name of the subscribers 

 Mr. Grant's picture of the Duchess and myself. Independently of 

 the merits of the picture as a work of art, it is most valuable to me 

 as a proof of the good feeling and regard of my neighbours and friends, 

 feelings which, believe me, are warmly and gratefully returned by us 

 both. The ready assistance and willing co-operation which I in- 

 variably meet with from the members of my hunt, and the owners 

 and occupiers of the land, and the hearty and successful efforts to 

 preserve foxes, has added tenfold to the pleasures of the noble sport, 

 and has made the hunting field, as it always should be, a place of 

 cordial greeting and good fellowship, cemejiting together the ties 

 which always have bound, and I trust always will continue to bind 

 my family to this neighbourhood. 



" I am particularly sensible .of the kindness of the subscribers 

 in wishing to add the portrait of the Duchess to the originally intended 

 picture — an addition which indeed doubles its value to me, and which 

 to her has been a most gratifying pioof of the esteem of those friends 

 and neighbours among whom she is always so happy to find luM'self. 



" As you have written on behalf of the subscribers, I will ask 

 you to convey to them, from the Duchess as well as myself, our 



