Chapter IX 



THE OLD HUNTSMAN AND THE 

 YOUNG MASTER 



1830-1842 



THE young Lord Forester had every qualification for 

 the post he was to occupy as master of the Belvoir. 

 From his earh'est years an enthusiastic lover of hunting, that 

 enthusiasm did not grow cold with time. Long, indeed, after 

 he was unable to mount his horse without assistance, Lord 

 Forester would go well with hounds, though not, of course, 

 with the brilliance of the earlier days of his mastership. If 

 we want to know what the new master was like in appear- 

 ance, we have but to glance at the reproduction of the 

 famous hunt breakfast picture, by Sir Francis Grant, on the 

 opposite page. The painting from which this print is taken 

 hangs in the smaller dining-room at Belvoir, and differs in 

 some respects from the other well-known picture, which has 

 been often engraved, and which is familiar to most of my 

 readers. The original of the latter picture is, I believe, in 

 the possession of the present Lord Cromer, and is in his 

 town house in Berkeley Street. 



That from which the present reproduction is made was in 

 the possession of Mr. Gilmour till his death, when it passed 

 by bequest to the sixth Duke of Rutland, who was his inti- 

 mate friend. In this painting Sir Francis Grant introduces 

 two figures, Scotch friends of Mr. Gilmour, which do not 

 appear in the other. Every one knows the curiously for- 

 tunate career of Sir Francis Grant, one of the handsomest 

 men of his time. How he spent his little patrimony 



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