1 84 CENTURY OF ENGLISH FOX-HUNTING 



immediately posted to an old friend whom he knew 

 to be in want In an age prone to pessimism it is 

 a happy thought that the good actions of such men 

 as Whyte-Melville survive their lives. 



I have already alluded to Mr. Apperley in my 

 reference to Mr. John Mytton. He was a man with 

 a dual existence. He rode to hounds with seventy- 

 three different packs, according to his own statement 

 made shortly before his death, and as he was at all 

 times a hard rider, he is clearly entitled to rank 

 amongst the giants of the hunting field. Yet pos- 

 terity chiefly knows him by his pseudonym of 

 " Nimrod," so that it is not easy for the biographer 

 to distinguish between the man and his writings. 

 It has been said that authors, either consciously or 

 unconsciously, write their own lives. A novice in 

 the science of criticism can tell the difference between 

 the early and late works of an author ; but Mr, 

 Apperley never published a line till he was in his 

 forty-fourth year, and his writings were, with few 

 exceptions, confined to magazine articles where he 

 had to adopt his style to editorial requirements. 

 Moreover, he wrote chiefly from memory in his 

 retirement at Calais, far from his former friends and 

 companions, when he had become impoverished in 

 his fortunes. Thus his hunting career and writing 

 career were distinct in point of time. 



It was in 1801 that his hunting career may be said 

 to have commenced in earnest, when he took a house 

 at Hinckley, in Leicestershire, where he remained for 



