THE HISTORY OF THE BELVOIR HUNT 



of age to whip-in to harriers at Meldrum House, belonging to 

 Mr. George Urquhart, where he remained five years ; from 

 there to the Fife, under John Wacker ; from there to the 

 Burton, when Lord Henry Bentinck was master ; from thence 

 to the Brocklesby, where he stayed three years ; from there 

 to the Belvoir, where he remained eighteen years." 



It will thus be seen that Cooper had had a first-rate 

 training, and though not perhaps the equal of Will Goodall, 

 he was both in field and kennel one of the best huntsmen of 

 his day, and left a very magnificent pack to his successor 

 Gillard. Cooper himself took over a very fine pack of sixty- 

 nine couples of hounds. The renown of Belvoir blood was 

 very great, and Trusty, Rallywood, Fairplay, Singer, Game- 

 ston and Lexicon were the favourite hounds with other 

 huntsmen. 



No hound exceeded twenty-three inches, the standard to 

 which Will Goodall had reduced the pack. The matrons of 

 the pack were Destitute, Nightshade and Dowager. Destitute 

 was a daughter of Sir Richard Sutton's Dryden, a very 

 favourite hound with Will Goodall. The entry of this season, 

 which was probably the best ever put in by any kennel of 

 hounds, is due to Goodall, who had looked forward to it with 

 peculiar interest. Rasselas, Raglan, of which more hereafter, 

 and Roman, all sons of Rallywood and Destitute, were looked 

 upon by Goodall as founding a new branch of the great 

 Rallywood Clan. In 1859 Nimrod Long, who was later to 

 make a name for himself, came as second whipper-in from the 

 Kildare. He was a son of that Will Long of whom the Duke 

 of Beaufort writes so pleasantly in the Badminton Library.^ 

 The story of Cooper's period of office and the early years of 

 the Duke's mastership shall be told in their own letters. The 

 Duke, when he took the hounds, was in the prime of life. He 

 had that great love of painting and pictures which is almost 

 as hereditary in his family as the love of sport, and he was an 

 amateur artist of no mean skill. As member for Stamford he 

 had proved himself a man of no slight courage and perse- 

 verance. Deeply attached to the agricultural party in the 

 ' Huntings p. 151 et seq. 

 250 



