240 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



the Stud house to Cumberland Lodge. He was a fine 

 horseman, and as great a judge of a horse, or indeed of any- 

 animal, as his greatly missed and lamented successor. In 

 those days Harry King, who had just come from the Ather- 

 stone, was only second whip, Freeman, who came I think 

 from Goodwood, being first whipper-in. Lord Kosslyn 

 mounted the men admirably as far as appearance went, but 

 the whips complained that they often had to do their duty 

 on unmade horses, and that directly they had got them 

 handy and accomplished they were sold. ' He [Lord Eosslyn] 

 was,' says Dr. Croft, ' a bit of a dealer,' and his horse-book, 

 which I have had before me, is full of valuations and sales of 

 the hunt horses. I remember a capital picture of him at 

 Dysart, in well-blacked butcher boots, and a blue bird's-eye 

 old-fashioned neckcloth.' 



' The best man of the Hunt ' at this time, 1841 and 1842, 

 Colonel Anstruther Thomson writes me, ' was Dicky Vyse, 

 a Captain in the Blues, and Fred Ponsonby, who used to 

 ride like a demon. His boots and his breeches never met, and 

 there was always a patch of bare leg between them.' Lord 

 Clanricarde was another celebrated bruiser with the Queen's 

 Hounds, but a very fine horseman, with long thin legs and 

 a nice weight. Mr. Saxty of Windsor, the accomplished 

 artist, told me that he once heard Bryant, the stud groom, 

 tell Lord Clanricarde that the horse he was going to ride, 

 belonging to Lord Bessborough, then Master of the Buck- 

 hounds, was not reliable at timber. The first thing Lord 

 Clanricarde did — Mr. Saxty saw him do it — was to ride him 

 at a white five-barred gate. They got over somehow. 



The first time I ever saw Lord Granville out hunting was 

 with the Pytchley. I remember the incident most distinctly, 

 and it fully bears out the reputation he left behind him in 

 the Queen's Country for resolute riding. It was a starving 

 cold day. Lord Granville was looking ill and suffering from 



