66 THE QUORN HUNT 



held in high esteem by the farmers and cattle-dealers, 

 whose interests he ever consulted. Punctuality at the 

 covert side was not the least of his virtues, but on one 

 occasion seeing a horse ridden by a lad, and knowing 

 who the owner was, he pulled out his watch at the time 

 when the hounds should have moved off, and said, " I 

 see Jack So-and-so's horse here, and he has not come. 

 It is Leicester Fair this morning ; he is a good fellow, 

 and we will give him a quarter of an hour's law ! " The 

 Jack in question was a sporting grazier who was attend- 

 ing the fair on business, but the cattle-market was held 

 early in the morning, and many a sporting farmer, who 

 could afford to keep a hunter in those days, did his busi- 

 ness first and then came on to hunt afterwards. " Few 

 masters of hounds," wrote a chronicler of the time, 

 "bear this in mind: this is the way to preserve a 

 country." 



Towards the close of Mr. Meynell's career Messrs. 

 Cholmondeley, Forester, and Ralph Lambton were 

 among the hardest men of the hunt, and Mr. R. Lambton 

 it was who succeeded his brother and Mr. Baker in the 

 mastership of the Lambton hounds. 



It is supposed that Mr. Meynell's last appearance at 

 the covert side was at Gumley in January 1798, after 

 which date his son took command, though Mr. Meynell 

 still remained actual master. Mr. Meynell, junr., how- 

 ever, died in the year 1800, from the effects of a fall 

 from his horse. 



Mr. Meynell lived on until the 14th of December 

 1808, when he died in London, at his house in Chapel 

 Street, Mayfair, at the age of seventy-three, as some 

 say ; but the Sporting Magazine and the Leicester Jour- 

 nal give his age at the time of his death as eighty- 

 one, in which case he would have been born in 1727, 

 and this is the more probable story of the two, as one 

 can hardly imagine that he would have been a master 



