OF FARRIERY. 



437 



year Mytton had ceased virtually to belong to 

 the turf. 



A companion and friend of Mytton ob- 

 serves — 



" Mr. Mytton's habits, once fixed, may be 

 easily supposed to have undergone no change 

 of material consequence ; but as he grew 

 daiKy older, the expansion, I might say the 

 philanthropy, of his noble heart grew also 

 daily greater, and his hospitality and kindness 

 to all around him must have been experienced 

 to be described. Surely never, in tiiis most 

 selfish world, was there an individual less 

 selfish, or one who, whilst wrapt up in the 

 pursuit of his own pleasures, could be more 

 eager to contribute to the participation in them 

 of others amongst his associates ! His purse, 

 his hoifse. his stables, and his kennels (to say 

 nothing of the weighty benefits conferred by 

 his powerful interest and recommendation on 

 many and many an individual, who, if grati- 

 tude be not altogether banished from the 

 earth, must long most gratefully revere his 

 memory) — all, all were open to the demands 

 of his acquaintances." 



A gentleman who had been hunting with 

 him, relates an anecdote or two, which shews 

 that Mytton's heart was not dead to the mis- 

 fortunes of others. 



" One incident in our progress town-wards 

 I cannot refrain from putting on paper, inas- 

 much as it shews this extraordinary man in a 

 light in which few have chosen to view him, 

 and speaks forcibly of his sympathy with dis- 

 tress, even in some of his wildest and most 

 unaccountable moments. We had pulled up 

 to hay and water both bipeds and quadrupeds 

 at the Telegraph on Brixton-hill, and before 

 the door of the public-hou.se there was sitting 

 a woman, evidently not a common beggar, 



though in apparent great distress, surrounded 

 by a group of little shirtless and shoeless 

 wretches, the sight of whom before a word 

 was spoken, made an appeal to Mytton's feel- 

 ings. Causing the voman to come up to the 

 carriage, and changing his tone from the 

 boisterously mirthful key in which he had 

 been convulsing us by his anecdotes, &c., &c., 

 into one of deep and even respectful sympathy, 

 he drew from her in a few sentences her tale 

 of misfortune ; and, as he literally had not one 

 farthing remaining in his own pocket, borrowed 

 a sovereign from me, and made me present it 

 to her on the spot ! Tell me that this ship- 

 wrecked man had not a heart .^ Why, what 

 do I happen to know that he offered only a 

 few days after this very occurrence to an 

 acquaintance, not a friend, but simply an 

 acquaintance, then under a cloud ? He had 

 himself just raised ten thousand pounds on 

 mortgage (this I know, for my own solicitor 

 raised it for him), and hearing that the indi* 

 vidual alluded to was most hardly pushed for 

 five hundred, the want of which might ope- 

 rate most prejudicially on his future prospects, 

 he went at once to him with the bank notes 

 in his hand, and would have left them with 

 him to be repaid at any time, with or even 

 without the simple security of an I O U, or a 

 note of hand, had not his noble interference 

 been rendered unnecessary by a relation of the 

 party having anticipated him. Nor is this at 

 all a singular anecdote of his career : and 

 could every act of generosity performed by 

 John Mytton be put on paper, the record 

 would form a volume, of which the dimensions 

 would astonish this censorious and calumniat- 



ing world. 



"The closing scene of the first day of my 

 personal acquaintance with this intrepid 

 5 s 



