128 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



He bought Quorndon Hall and built the kennels, 

 and to him the hunt owes its name as well as its 

 reputation. In all history there must be a starting- 

 point, and Mr. Meynell's mastership has been fixed 

 upon as the beginning of modem hunting. It might 

 be said, of course, that Lord Spencer and Dick Knight 

 handled their hounds in much the same fashion in 

 Northamptonshire about that period. No doubt they 

 did, and no doubt wherever there was a young eager 

 master and huntsman and good scenting ground the 

 " Meynellian " system was more or less followed. 



Mr. Meynell's character and position, however, gave 

 a name to a system. He was in every respect a 

 remarkable man, and seems to have made a great 

 impression on his own generation. He made the 

 Quorn famous, drew men to the country, and in- 

 directly founded the prosperity of Melton Mowbray, 

 for it was the fame of his hounds that drew Mr. Cecil 

 Forester and other hard-riding sportsmen thither. 

 Nothing, however, shows the change in hunting even 

 in Mr. Meynell's time and our own more than the 

 difference between the extent of country drawn. Mr. 

 Meynell hunted from Nottingham to Market Har- 

 borough. It was not merely that he began, or rather 

 caused Jack Raven to begin — for Mr. Meynell never 

 hunted the hounds himself — a quick style of hunting, 

 but that he paid more attention to the all-important 

 subject of condition. This attracted the attention of 

 his contemporaries, as witness the couplet from the 

 Billesdon Coplow verses : 



" But for horses and hounds and the system of kennel^ 

 Give me Leicestershire nags and the hounds of old Meynell." 



The faster hounds stimulated the eager riders, and 

 these in turn reacted on the huntsmen. Lord Sefton, 



