THE MARQUIS OF WATERFORD. 251 



bet, offered to give a pair of "ponies" for the metal 

 man, but his friend declined the half century, procured 

 a coffin, and brought the statue to Ireland, and for 

 many years the trophy could be seen in a niche in a 

 large tree in a demesne not a thousand miles from the 

 Curragh. 



When, at the close of the season 1838-9, the 

 Quorn Hounds were without a master. Lord Water- 

 ford was pressed to take them, but he declined. He 

 was enamoured of hunting, and was a really good 

 man to ride to hounds. He was "as bold as a lion," 

 had a good seat, capital hands, but his head was not 

 the best. He lacked those great essential requisites 

 to a first-class race rider — patience and coolness — con- 

 sequently he was inferior to those great artistes. Lords 

 Macdonald and Eglinton, Sir Frederick Johnstone, 

 Mr. Oilman, Captain Pettit, Captain Beecher, Mr. 

 Purcell, Mr. Allen M'Donogh, Captain Ross, Dick 

 Christian, Tom Olliver, and Mason, all of whom he 

 opposed in many a great cross-country event. In the 

 shires and wolds of England, over the oxers in North- 

 amptonshire and Leicestershire, and the banks and 

 walls in Tipperary, Waterford, Kilkenny, and Kildare, 

 he led the van throughout many a quick " burst" and 

 long-hunting run. Some of my readers, I am sure, 

 have heard of the famous "Porch run," when Lord 

 Lonsdale's huntsman, Lambert, killed his fox in the 

 porch of Belvoir Castle, and declared that " I shall 

 now die happy." Lord Waterford was one of a few 

 who rode that famous chase from find to finish. He 

 was one of the most prominent figures in Grant's cele- 

 brated picture, " The Melton Hunt," in a notice of 

 which a writer said of Lord Waterford : " As a sports- 



