'As Master of the Kildare hounds,' writes one of his brother sportsmen, 'Naas had a good deal against him in his public capacity as a politician, with the farmers and others; but his innate goodness of heart, his thorough love of Ireland and Irishmen, and his wondrous enthusiasm for sport, soon made him loved by all who knew him. There are many farmers who have not hunted since his time, and he made many a man hunt who never thought of it before. He was never once in a field without knowing it ever afterwards, and how to get out of it. He remembered every fence in the country; and one day, having lost his watch in a run, he next day walked over the ground, part of which he had crossed alone, and found it. He reckoned that the greatest compliment paid to him while Master was by the farmers of the Maynooth country. One of them gave the land, and they all turned out with men and horses, and made a stick covert for him in a single day. Nothing ever gratified him more. But, indeed, there were men in {63} Kildare among all classes who were devoted to him, and with whom he had marvellous influence--men of different religion and of different politics from himself. 'Lord Naas drew very late, and was always delighted, when it was very late, if somebody asked him to draw again. He often went to the meet when the country was deep with snow and hard frost; but if it was thawing he always hunted, even with no one out. He never had a very bad fall; and when he had an ordinary one, he never cared. Those who saw him at Downshire jump into a trap filled with water will not easily forget his joyous whoop when we ran to ground, and his fine manly figure and happy face as he scraped the mud off his coat. 'To sum up: Lord Naas took the country in 1857 with poor funds, no coverts, and few foxes. In five years he gave it up with all the coverts restored, full of foxes, and with a balance of money in hand--the subscriptions having increased by 500 pounds a year. The gentlemen of the county are solely indebted to him for the present satisfactory state of the county as a great hunting country. He advocated the admission of members who would not have been admitted under the old rules, and did much thereby to popularise the Hunt.' The same friend remarks in a private letter:[10] 'We are indebted to Lord Naas for Kildare as it is--for its good sport and good-fellowship.' Perhaps a too enthusiastic estimate of the services of any single man; but Lord Mayo {64} carried so intense a vitality alike into his work and his play, that he was apt to infect with enthusiasm all who came near him. [Footnote 10: Written in 1874.]