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THE HISTORY OF THE BELVOIR HUNT 



remarkable to find how many of the guests seem to have 

 treated it as their headquarters. Brummell always had his 

 own room there, and Mr. Assheton Smith, when not occupy- 

 ing a country as M.F.H., seems to have almost lived there in 

 the hunting season. On this well-known character I am 

 not going to dwell, for his exploits have been so often told 

 and his history is so well known. He is, in fact, far more 

 popular with posterity than a rough and rather overbearing 

 temper permitted him to be with the people of his own day. 

 Of his qualities as a huntsman there are different opinions, 

 but as a rider every one is agreed that no stronger or bolder 

 horseman has ever crossed Leicestershire. His famous saying, 

 that there was no fence in the famous South Quorn country 

 (now Mr. Fernie's) you could not get over with a fall, exactly 

 describes the resolute nature of the man. The preoccupation 

 of most of us when riding over that very delightful and 

 sporting but most difficult country is how to get over 

 without a fall. 



Both the Duke's brothers. Lord Charles and Lord Robert, 

 had been in the loth Hussars, and the former had served 

 with some distinction in the Peninsula. 



Lord Robert was a great dandy and a hard rider. Lord 

 Charles was perhaps the keener about hunting of the two 

 younger brothers. Lord Robert " the Dandy " was a 

 prominent figure of the set in London of which Brummell 

 was the leader, and was one of those who had most occasion 

 to regret the fact. It is admissible to wonder how his family 

 relished Lord Forester's allusions in the poem to these 

 troubles. 



A figure from the past once more moved among the 

 Belvoir circle. The Rev. George Crabbe was now Rector 

 of Muston and Allington, these livings having been pro- 

 cured for him by the Duchess Mary Isabella, and after 

 some wanderings the poet had come back to settle in the 

 Vale of Belvoir. He had been the friend of the late Duke, 

 and he was no less valued by the son, nor had his affectionate 

 loyalty to the family to whom he owed so much wavered in 

 the slightest degree. The poet moved, a strange and some- 



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