THE HOUSE OF MANNERS AND THE CHASE 



credit of giving the pack, if not its first start towards its 

 present excellence, yet still of helping it forward in a great 

 degree. He had a character for what country folk called 

 " nearness," and this is referred to by Lord Forester in the 

 poem quoted on page 91, and in the legend that no smoke 

 curled up from the Croxton Park kitchen chimneys during 

 his tenancy. 



With Mr. Perceval, Newman, the first of the great hunts- 

 men, comes on the scene. Then came the fifth Duke, who 

 raised the hunt to a yet higher pitch of excellence, and he, 

 beside being a keen sportsman, was much more than this. A 

 man who loved society, who had an appreciation of art, who 

 did his duty by his estate and preserved the political influence 

 of his family, he touched life at many points, and during and 

 after the life-time of his Duchess, Belvoir was one of the great 

 centres of English society. There politics, sport and litera- 

 ture met on common ground, and it is this society in its most 

 brilliant periods I have endeavoured to sketch. It was at 

 Belvoir that Disraeli learned to understand and respect that 

 English aristocracy which he had in his very early life been 

 somewhat inclined to despise, and though he does make 

 Sidonia win a steeplechase on an Arab, he really gained at 

 Belvoir some grasp of the interest and importance of fox- 

 hunting as a factor in our national life. 



With Lord Forester and William Goodall, who brought, 

 the one enthusiasm and the other genius, to bear on the 

 fortunes of the hunt, the Belvoir touched the highest point 

 of excellence the pack has ever known. This was un- 

 doubtedly the golden age of the Belvoir country. 



When the fifth Duke of Rutland died in 1857, the sixth 

 Duke took the hounds, and, with Cooper and Gillard as his 

 huntsmen, showed good sport. This Duke was a very keen 

 man to hounds, and so desperately hard a rider that he 

 probably shortened his hunting career by the severity of 

 the falls he had. The effects of these and the gout, eventu- 

 ally drove this keenest sportsman of all the Dukes from the 

 hunting field. From that time to the present the interest 

 of the history centres in the kennel, and in the names of 



15 



