44 THE QUORN HUNT 



a society man ; a very good musician, and quite a fair 

 violinist. On the 22nd February 1760, while Laurence 

 Earl Ferrers was lying under sentence of death for the 

 murder of his steward, Mr. Meynell joined in readily 

 with the local festivities. The master and the members 

 of the hunt gave a ball, to which they invited the 

 residents of the neighbourhood, as well as the officers 

 of the Suffolk Militia, which regiment happened to be 

 quartered in Leicester. The ball was opened at seven 

 o'clock in the old Guildhall, when the supper, consist- 

 ing of one hundred and sixty dishes, supplied by the 

 landlord of the Cranes Inn, appears to have been all 

 that could be desired, and " two hundred persons of 

 distinction" refreshed exhausted nature. What time the 

 company broke up after "meeting" at seven is not 

 stated. 



Mr. Meynell and his friends also patronised theat- 

 ricals, for so long ago as 1760 Messrs. Darrawan's 

 Company performed at Leicester, by special desire of 

 the Hunt, the comedy of " Love for Love," while on 

 the following evening the " Beggars' Opera " and a 

 harlequin entertainment were given, the latter being 

 especially applauded. On several subsequent occa- 

 sions, too, travelling companies were in request at 

 the Leicester theatre, and in 1776 the "Suspicious 

 Husband," by the late ingenious Dr. B. Hoadley, "was 

 played by request"; the after-piece was "The Deuce 

 is in Him," and a day or two afterwards "Macbeth" 

 made up the programme. 



Mr. Meynell was High Sheriff for Derbyshire in 

 1758, and between the years 1761 and 1778 he had sat 

 in Parliament as representing in succession Lichfield, 

 Lymington, and Stafford. The Gentleman s Magazine 1 

 says that from 1770 to 1772 Mr. Meynell was Master 

 of the Royal Buckhounds, a statement I have seen 



1 Vol. Ixxxviii. (1808), p. 1 1 34. 



