THE BUILDERS OF BELVOIR 



sums were paid for hunters than in our own day ; and even 

 now, when the demand for them is greater and the supply 

 by no means adequate, the prices then paid would be con- 

 sidered extravagant. Thus early in the century the Duke 

 of Rutland gave eight hundred guineas to Mr. Wardell, a 

 renowned judge of horses, for a hunter which is said to have 

 cleared the " river Swift, nine yards wide" as we are told in 

 the Sporting Magazine of 1822 (p. 221). 



The Duke was a keen sportsman, and it was already known 

 that he intended to take the mastership of his own hounds. 

 This he did about 1804-5, and he at the same time engaged 

 " Gentleman " Shaw as his huntsman. Shaw was a man of 

 superior attainments and possibly of superior birth, and he 

 had already made his name as huntsman to Sir Thomas 

 Mostyn, with the pack which hunted the country now known 

 as the Bicester, and particularly to those hunting men 

 who learned to ride with hounds at Oxford, a branch of 

 science for which that ancient university was once famous. 

 Shaw was noted for a certain courtliness of manner, and he 

 was a good huntsman and a still finer rider. As compared 

 with his predecessor, Newman, he had a more decisive style 

 of hunting hounds, and was quicker in his casts. His faults 

 were want of patience and recklessness, and it is said that, 

 though he could show magnificent sport with a fair scent, he 

 used to fail on bad scenting days. Yet he had great fame in 

 his own day, and probably deserved his reputation. At all 

 events, he was just the huntsman to suit a keen young 

 master, and he raised the reputation of the Belvoir Hunt not 

 a little. It is probable that the Duke heard of him when 

 hunting with his uncle's hounds in the present Heythrop 

 country, which in those days formed part of the Badminton 

 territory, and there would appear to have been some ar- 

 rangement between him and Shaw, as the latter, after leaving 

 Sir Thomas Mostyn, waited a whole year for the post of 

 huntsman to the Belvoir. Shaw is first heard of as groom 

 and then as huntsman to Lord Moira, and it was from there 

 he went to Mr. Musters, and thence passed shortly afterwards 

 to Sir Thomas Mostyn, where he had an exceedingly good 



