22 HUNTING DIRECTORY. 



Hugh Meynell, Ksq. 



"After the fatigues of the day, which were generally 

 crowned with the brushes of a brace of foxes, he enter- 

 tained those who would return with him, and which was 

 sometimes thirty miles distance, with old English hospi- 

 tality. Good old October was the liquor drank ; and 

 his first fox-hunting toast, was ' All the brushes in 

 Christendom.' At the age of eighty years this gentleman 

 died, as he chiefly lived, for he died on horseback. As 

 he was going to give some instructions to a friend who 

 was rearing up a pack of fox-hounds, he was seized with 

 a fit, and dropping from his old favourite pony, he ex- 

 pired ! There was no man, rich or poor, in his neigh- 

 bourhood, but lamented his death ; and the foxes were 

 the only things that had occasion to be glad that Squire 

 Draper was no more." 



The foundation of the present system of fox-hunting 

 was unquestionably laid by the celebrated Hugo Mey- 

 nell, Esq. who for many years conducted the Quorndon 

 establishment, and whose ideas upon the subject I shall 

 notice repeatedly in the course of this work. 



When fox-hunting had assumed something of its 

 modern form, the chase was followed by a slow, heavy 

 hound, whose exquisite olfactory organs enabled him to 

 carry on the scent a considerable time after the fox had 

 passed, as v/ell over greasy fallows, as hard roads, and 

 other places where the modern high-bred fox-hound 

 would not be able to recognise it. Thus the chase conti- 

 nued for double the duration which it at present occupies, 

 and hence may be seen the reason why the old Enghsh 

 hunter, so celebrated in former days, and so great a 

 favourite witli sportsmen of the old school, was enabled 



