- Type: Art Audio File
- Collection: European Art
- Culture/Region: Europe
- Subject Area: Visual Arts
- Grade Level: 9-12, College, Adult
During Count Sándor’s stay in Melton Mowbray, an amused press reported on his bold feats in riding and fox hunting. C. J. Nimrod, a writer for The Sporting Magazine, relays his impressions of the count in his article “Nimrod’s Visit to Melton Mowbray,” published in May 1829:
The life of the place (Melton), however, was wonderfully increased by the presence of Count Sándor, an Hungarian Nobleman, who spent the winter there, living chiefly with Lord Alvanley, and delighting every one by his extreme vivacity and good humour. His plan was this, and my readers will say it was a plan by no means unworthy of any man’s imitation: He agreed to give the well-known Mr. Tilbury, of South-street, Grosvenor-square, London, a thousand guineas to find him in horses for the season, the number of which was not to be less than ten. In this sum were also included the expenses attendant on all the stable servants; and even the payment of the turnpikes made part of the contract. It is but fair to add, that the Count was mounted very much to his mind, and certainly at a very reasonable rate. It seldom happens that one of our best native provincials cuts much of a figure in a Leicestershire field; but that a foreigner, quite unaccustomed to hunting, should have crept by degrees into the first flight of those fast-going Meltonians, is almost beyond belief. But so it was; and, as merit is sometimes unattended by vanity, the Count was not ashamed of being shewn up as a tyro by his own act and deed. He is gone back to his own country, with ten pictures in his possession from the pencil of Mr. Fernelli [sic.], in which he is represented in the various grades of that difficult art – riding to hounds.