SOME OLD SUPPORTERS. 261 



in sucli order. And this was not effected, as Dryden says, 

 by 



" Rage and storm, and blasphemously loud, 

 As Stentor bellowing to a Grecian crowd," 



but, as I have said, by the natural influence which a man 

 acquires when he has attained excellence in his calling, be 

 that calling- what it may.' 



The only instance on record of Sir Bellingham giving 

 his field or any member of it a ' blowing up ' was a matter 

 of arrangement. They had been a little unruly and foxes 

 had been headed, an immense field giving a fox but small 

 chance of breaking. So Sir Bellingham went to Captain 

 Berkeley of the T/iundcrcr, and asked him to post himself 

 at the likeliest place for a fox to break, and he would give 

 him a ' thundering good blowing up.' The Captain carried 

 out his instructions and got the 'blowing up' in accordance 

 with the programme, and it is to be hoped that the field 

 profited by the lesson, though that may be open to question. 

 When Sir Bellingham retired from the mastership of the 

 Shropshire, in 1826, he came to reside on his Yorkshire 

 estates, and subscribed liberally to the York and Ainsty 

 Hunt, besides taking an active interest in its welfare. It 

 should be added of him that, like the late Lord Macclesfield, 

 he turned out a lot of excellent hunt servants, amongst whom 

 may be named Will Staples and Jack Wrigglesworth, both 

 of whom became famous huntsmen. ^ 



Mr. Richard York, of Wighill, though he was a resident 

 in the Bramham Moor country, may be looked upon as a 

 supporter of the neighbouring pack, the more especially as 

 if it had not been for his carefully-kept diaries, much valuable 

 information respecting the early history of the hunt would 

 have been lost. That he hunted regularly with the York 



(i) His son, Sir Reginald Graham, has been master of the Cotsvvold, the 

 Tedworth, the New Forest and the Hurworth, so that father and son were 

 masters of ten packs of hounds between them. 

 H 2 



