THE GENEROUS GRANBY 



Lord Guernsey, has tied up Lord Granby so rigorously that 

 the Duke of Rutland has endeavoured to break the match. 

 She has four thousand pounds a year ; he is said to have 

 the same in present, but not to touch hers. He is in debt 

 ten thousand pounds. She was to give him ten, which now 

 Lord Winchilsea refuses. Upon the strength of her fortune, 

 Lord Granby proposed to treat her with presents of twelve 

 thousand pounds, but desired her to buy them. She, who 

 never saw nor knew the value of ten shillings while her 

 father lived, and has had no time to learn it, bespoke away 

 so roundly that for one article of the plate she ordered ten 

 sauce-boats; besides this, she and her sister have squandered 

 seven thousand pounds a-piece in all kinds of bauble and 

 frippery ; so her four thousand pounds a year is to be set 

 apart for two years to pay her debts. Don't you like this 

 English management ? — two of the greatest fortunes meet- 

 ing and setting out with poverty and want." ^ 



Doubtless there was not a little exaggeration in this, but 

 Walpole's main facts are, as a rule, to be depended upon, 

 though the touches of vivid colour, which his not too kindly 

 wit gave his stories, have to be reckoned with. 



We may assume that Lord Granby managed to hunt at 

 this period, which was one of progress for the Belvoir pack, 

 and fresh strains of blood were sought for from other kennels ; 

 thus stallion hounds were bought from Lord Chetwode in 

 1756, from the Duke of Grafton in 1757, and from Sir John 

 Key, Mr. Pelham, and the Duke of Devonshire in 1760. In 

 the last year the Marquis was in Westphalia, as second in 

 command to Lord George Sackville, for his promotion had 

 come rapidly, and he had been made a major-general in 

 1755, and had received the colonelcy of the Royal Horse 

 Guards (Blue) in 1758. But before he left England the 

 Belvoir Hunt had reached a considerable degree of popu- 

 larity, and men had already begun to make the pleasant old 

 town of Grantham their headquarters for hunting, as the 

 following list of the riders with these hounds in 1758 

 shows : — 



' Horace Walpole's Letters, vol. ii., p. 352. 

 47 



