THE HISTORY OF THE BELVOIR HUNT 



Wellington rode in his gallant manner after the hounds, and 

 is reported to have been so well mounted by his old A.D.C, 

 Lord Tweeddale, that he remarked that Leicestershire was 

 not so much more difficult a country to cross than Hamp- 

 shire. The magnificent hospitality of the Castle is described 

 by Charles Greville, the keenest of chroniclers, if the least 

 genial, and surely the most melancholy figure in all his own 

 portrait gallery. The man who had too much conscience 

 to allow him to enjoy a life of low aims and not too innocent 

 pleasures, too weak a will to alter the course of his existence, 

 or break the Liliputian chains of a thousand habits of self- 

 indulgence, he rails at fate and sneers at his fellow-men and 

 has come down to later days stripped by his own hand of all 

 the sound grace which in his time he must have shown. It 

 is a comfort to think that, like other cynics, he enjoyed him- 

 self more than he was willing to allow even to himself. 



" Belvoir Castle, January 7th. 



" After many years of delay, I am here since the 3rd, to 

 assist at the celebration of the Duke of Rutland's birthday. 

 The party is very large, and sufficiently dull : the Duke of 

 Wellington, Esterhazy, Matuscewitz, Rokeby, Miss d'Este 

 (afterwards Lady Truro), and the rest a rabble of fine people, 

 without beauty or wit among them. The place is certainly 

 very magnificent and the position of the Castle unrivalled, 

 though the interior is full of enormous faults, which are wholly 

 irretrievable. This results from the management of the alter- 

 ations having been entrusted to the Duchess and Sir John 

 Thurston (the former of whom had some taste but no know- 

 ledge), and they have consequently made a sad mess of it. 

 There is immense space wasted, and with great splendour and 

 some comfort the Castle has been tumbled about until they 

 have contrived to render it a very indifferent house ; no rooms 

 communicating, nor even (except the drawing-room and din- 

 ing-room, the former of which is seldom or never inhabited) 

 contiguous. The gallery, though unfinished, is a delightful 

 apartment, and one of the most comfortable I ever saw. 

 The outside of the Castle is faulty, but very grand — so grand 



154 



