56 BE AV FORT HUNT: PAST AND PRESENT. 



warmest thanks £(»• the great pleasure their kind and most handsome 

 present has conferred upon us. 



" Believe me, my dear Mr. Estcourt and Colonel Miles, 



" Very sincerely yours, 



" Beaufort. 

 " To Edw. B. Estcourt, Esq., and Lieutenant-Colonel C. W. Miles." 



The picture was exhibited at the Ro5'al Academy Exhibition of 

 1864. 



In 1898, His Grace, the 8th Duke of Beaufort, who had four 

 years previously handed over the Hounds to the Marquis of Wor- 

 cester, and had taken up his residence at Stoke House, was presented 

 with a portrait of himself by Mr. Ellis Roberts. The presentation 

 was made on the occasion of a lawn meet at Badminton, on March 

 5th, 1898, and in making the presentation on behalf of the subscribers, 



Lord Estcourt said " They felt in that country, in that fox- 

 hunting country, that they owed an enormous debt of gratitude to 

 the Duke of Beaufort. The Duke, on visiting Badminton again, 

 would like to hear one thing — they had first class sport under his 

 noble son, the Marquis of Worcester. They desired to express their 

 obligations for all the Duke of Beaufort had done in the interests of 

 sport. For very many years past they had had the very best of 

 sport under His Grace's rule. There never was in the history of 

 any presentation one which had met with such absolute concurrence, 

 and which was so full of good feeling from those from whom it came 

 as the present." 



The Duke of Beaufort, in replying, said : " It is very difficult 

 for me to find words to express to you the gratification that I feel 

 at the too great kindness you have shown me. I am sure no man 

 has been more warmly, more heartily, supported in any country 

 in England than I have been all my life. It was the same with my 

 grandfather and my father before me, and I am happy also to feel 

 that that same kind feeling still pervades, and that you support my 

 son in the kind and generous way in which you have always supported 

 me. I assure you that it is a difficult matter to find words to express, 

 on behalf both of the Duchess and myself, what very great gratifica- 

 tion you have given to us in this mark of your kindness. I hope that 

 this picture will be handed down from son to son for many generations 

 to come ; and if such a thing is possible as fox-hunting in the future, 

 that the Master of Badminton will still be master of the hunt in this 

 country, and the hounds will continue to show the sport which you 

 are kind enough to say we have always shown you. As to Colonel 

 Estcourt and the Committee, the gentlemen who have taken all 

 the trouble about this matter, I am most grateful to them ; and I 

 must say — of course I am no judge myself of a likeness of myself — 

 that I have heard on all hands that no one could paint a more perfect 

 likeness than Mr. Ellis Roberts has just done. I beg to thank him 



