Henry, Third Marquis of Waterford 



" Forty and one years " (says Mr. Forbes) " have passed 

 since the fatal March afternoon when 



" ' Mayboy stumbled o'er the rotten wall ; ' 



and still we read frequent mention of the ' Wild Marquis,' of 

 the mad exploits of his youth, when, with other kindred spirits, 

 he ' heard the chimes at midnight' of his steeplechases and 

 single combats, but never a word is said in print of those 

 seventeen years of exemplary married life when he resided 

 entirely on his estates and among his people, doing good to all, 

 warding off starvation with a generous hand in the famine 

 years, proving himself a leader of men and the mainstay of 

 the loyalists of Leinster in the wild days of the Smith O'Brien 

 rebellion, and by his vast employment of labour, and his 

 practical encouragement of agriculture and industries, nobly 

 fulfilling the duties of a great country gentleman. Though he 

 excelled in all manly sports, fox-hunting was the pastime to 

 which he was most devoted, and there was testimony that he 

 regarded it as a great means of social recreation for all classes 

 in his neighbourhood, while there was a grand unselfishness in 

 the zeal and expenditure of money and time for the benefit of 

 others, when he hunted Tipperary and what afterwards came to 

 be called 'the Curraghmore country,' entirely at his own expense. 

 But even in the matter of fox-hunting, time has dealt unfairly 

 with the memory of * the Marquis,' for I have recently seen it 

 stated that he was a man who cared nothing for hounds and 

 knew little about them ; that he was a bad judge of a hound 

 and little better of a horse ; that he cared only for a gallop, and 

 would as soon hunt a drag as anything else — in fact, that he 

 ever remained the same wild madcap who painted the town 

 red in early Meltonian days." 



Mr. Forbes goes on to say, " Although Lord Waterford 



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