THE HISTORY OF THE BELVOIR HUNT 



From his kennel sneaks 

 The conscious villain. See 1 he skulks along, 

 Sleek at the shepherd's cost, and plump with meals 

 Purloined. So thrive the wicked here below. 

 Tho' high his brush he bear, tho' tipt with white 

 It gaily shine, yet ere the sun declin'd 

 Recall the shades of night, the pampered rogue 

 Shall rue his fate revers'd ; and at his heels 

 Behold the just avenger, swift to seize 

 His forfeit head, and thirsting for his blood." 



To Hugo Meynell belongs the honour of having first 

 demonstrated to the squires and nobles of the Midlands 

 the possibilities of the fox properly hunted. This great 

 sportsman was no illiterate country bumpkin, but a man of 

 fashion, culture and refinement, and the friend of the great 

 Dr. Johnson. In Bos well's Life of Johnson ^ a remark 

 by Mr. Meynell, that " the chief advantage of London 

 is that a man is always so near his burrow^' is quoted 

 with appreciation, though without apparently grasping the 

 force of the allusion to sport contained in it. Meynell it 

 was who set the fashion of paying more attention to the 

 breeding of hounds for the hunting of the fox, and in 1750 

 he began the formation of that pack which, hunting the 

 country we now know as the Quorn, has transmitted its 

 excellencies chiefly through the Bel voir kennels to the fox- 

 hounds of England. The pack was partly formed from 

 hounds descended from the old Wardour Castle hounds, 

 said to be the earliest ever kept for hunting the fox only, 

 though of this the evidence is necessarily scanty, but it is 

 clear the Arundell hounds were in existence as a pack in the 

 last decade of the seventeenth century. Whether, however, 

 they were the only ones seems doubtful, for by the year 

 1750 there were several established packs, and the late Mr. 

 Nevill Fitt (H.H. of the Field), in his Covertside Sketches^ 

 argues from this, and I think justly, that at the time the 

 Wardour pack was hunting, there were other packs in 

 existence of which history tells us nothing. At all events, 

 Mr. Meynell's, the Brocklesby, the Badminton, and the Belvoir, 



^ Vol. iii., p. 378. 

 12 



