1870—71.] THE PllINCK OF WALES AT MELTON. 21 



not omit to speak of the grand horseflesh that greeted one's eyes 

 at the meet and in the field. Surely so many glorious cattle 

 (the number of riders being considered) never turned out together 

 as now appeared to do honour to our future king, and credit to 

 the gallop in store. Each man had brought his best horse, or 

 horses, for the occasion ; and when we consider that the pick of 

 Sir Frederick Johnstone's, Mr. Gilmour's, Messrs. Behrens', 

 Lord Grey de Wilton's, Mr. Coupland's, and half a dozen other 

 crack stables (with Capt. Boyce's Waterloo, showing money's 

 worth at every point), had been saddled, no eulogium can be 

 thought extravagant. The royal horses were shape and quality 

 itself, the Prince's mount to-day (a dark brown) being to all 

 appearance as perfect a specimen of a high-bred weight-carrying 

 hunter as could be seen ; though, as the event proved, they 

 naturally lacked the forward condition of horses who have been 

 taking their weekly turn all the winter. Indeed, it is a fact one 

 cannot help noting, that even in Leicestershire, and in studs 

 that have never been allowed to remain idle when they could be 

 worked, horses are only now beginning to assume the real hard 

 state of condition when they can gallop through a quick thing 

 without being blown, and jumj) fence after fence without dis- 

 tressing themselves. The broken winter and the lengthened 

 frost have put them where we "should expect them to be about 

 Christmas in ordinary seasons, and only the extreme paucity of 

 severe runs since the frost has prevented the fact making itself 

 more unpleasantly apparent. 



The fox from Thrussington Wolds was far more selfishly con- 

 cerned for his own safety than sensible of the honourable task 

 he was called upon to perform, for he slipped through the New 

 Covert, leaving the field to follow through two boggy ploughs, 

 and doubled under the hedge at the road. Unable to make out 

 his line, the hounds were trotted three miles back through this 

 benighted region ; and Cossington Corse, the hope of the day 

 and the anxious master's last support, was reached. Had the 

 Prince now gone home, what a notion would he have carried 

 away of our boasted Leicestershire ! And could not the Burton 



