BIOGRAPHIES IN A NUTSHELL 171 



board and lodging. I do not assert that Dick Chris- 

 tian's profession is obsolete; but that a professor 

 capable of following in his footsteps has yet to be 

 found must be the opinion of every hunting man. 

 To him are especially applicable the lines of Major 

 Whyte-Melville. He was a man 



" To whom naught comes amiss, 

 One horse or another, that country or this. 

 Through falls or bad starts who undauntedly still 

 Rides up to the motto, ' Be with them I will.' " 



Having just had occasion to refer to Mr. Dixon, 

 better known to lovers of sport as " The Druid," I 

 will take this opportunity of writing a few words 

 about him. He was the second son of Mr. Peter 

 Dixon, a large cotton manufacturer, who resided at 

 Holme Eden, near Carlisle, whose family had long 

 been noted for fostering commercial enterprise in the 

 old cathedral city. But, like his more celebrated 

 son, Mr. Peter Dixon was a man of widespread 

 sympathies, and hunted regularly with the Inglewood 

 Hounds. As a lad young Dixon suffered severely 

 from ophthalmia, and constantly had to spend days 

 together in an artificially darkened room. Thus it 

 was not till 1838, when he was sixteen years of age, 

 that he was sent to Rugby, then under the master- 

 ship of Dr. Arnold. He left Rugby in 1840, having 

 reached "the twenty," i.e. the form immediately be- 

 low the" sixth, and being six feet in height, and strong 

 in proportion. Before leaving he was requested by 

 Dr. Arnold to come into his study, when the Doctor 



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