MR. MEYNELL 47 



endways run," as the account says, and the only four 

 who really rode all through were Messrs. Cholmondeley, 

 Forester, Morant, and Sir Harry Featherstonhaugh. 

 The huntsman and three or four others who had "skirted 

 with judgment " came up just after the fox was killed, 

 but the rest of a large field were quite left behind. 



When Mr. Meynell first hunted the Ouorn country 

 he had but two subscribers, Lord R. Cavendish and Mr. 

 Boothby, to help him ; but as time rolled on subscrip- 

 tions were asked for and were obtained. In Mr. Mey- 

 nell's early days, however, fox-hunters would appear to 

 have been a power in the land, for when Dr. Ford, vicar 

 of Melton (author of "The Melton Hunt in 1813," see 

 pp. 96 and 97), was preaching a charity sermon, several 

 well-known hunting men came late into church, where- 

 upon the learned doctor 1 paused to say, "Here the 

 red-coats come, they know their Christian duties ; there 

 is not a man among them but what is good for a guinea." 



In his own mode of managing a subscription pack, 

 Mr. Meynell was from all accounts one by himself. A 

 chronicler of the time says of him, " He had to humour 

 as well as to contend with a race of as dashing young- 

 men in Harvey Aston, Charles Wyndham, &c, as could 

 be found, who were continually racing against each other 

 and before his hounds ; but by the force of his laughter 

 and the pleasantry of his observations upon them they 

 were called to order and acknowledged their error." 

 On two of his field one day riding in front of his hounds, 

 he made the remark that his hounds were following- the 

 gentlemen who had kindly gone forward to see what the 

 fox was about. Indeed, the Quorn field appears at times 

 to have been extremely unruly, for on one occasion, when 

 one of the greatest thrusters of the hunt was asked 

 whether he had taken the head in a certain run, he calmly 

 replied, "No, I was only second; but I was a field and 



1 A T otes and Queries, vol. ii. p. 252. 



