90 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



marked as a red-letter day in the records of the Bad- 

 minton Hunt. At that time a correspondent, writing 

 over the initials " H.M.G.," regularly forwarded ac- 

 counts of Badminton sport to Bell's Life. After 

 recounting the points of this day's sport he adds 

 these words, which I quote, since they are an epitaph, 

 written by one, who knew the late Duke of Beaufort 

 both in and out of the hunting-field : " But there is no 

 sunshine without a cloud. While we were enjoying 

 this sport a change for the worse had taken place in 

 the health of His Grace, who had for the last three 

 weeks suffered much from neuralgic pains flying all 

 over the body, though without fear of immediate 

 danger. Exhausted nature, however, sank under con- 

 tinued suffering, and he died without a struggle on 

 Thursday, at 2 P.M., in the sixty-first year of his age. 

 He had been unable to ride on horseback for the last 

 three years from anchylosed joints from gout, but has 

 constantly, when his health permitted, been present at 

 the meets in a phaeton drawn by his celebrated pied 

 horses. As a nobleman and as a Master of Hounds 

 he had no equal in courteousness of manner and 

 affability to all in the hunting-field. The highest and 

 lowest, the rich and poor, the lettered and unlettered, 

 all had a mark of recognition with such a gracious 

 manner as seemed to raise those whom he addressed 

 to his own level, instead of that insulting condescension 

 which many of the would-be great people practise. 

 His management of the field made him much beloved. 

 A good sportsman himself, he kept his field in order 

 without the acerbity often met with elsewhere. No 



