BIOGRAPHIES IN A NUTSHELL 191 



Surtees to found. Now " Nimrod's " works are read 

 chiefly by students of hunting Hterature. His habit 

 of dragging into his writings unnecessary quotations 

 from the Latin poets detracts from their Hterary style 

 without doubt, while a general perusal of them 

 makes us wish that the author had forgotten the 

 existence of the first person singular in the English 

 language. Yet the wheat is worth the trouble of 

 separating from the chaff by those who wish to learn 

 the history of fox-hunting during the first quarter of 

 the century, and to read about the men who were 

 famous in the hunting field at that time. 



But if Mr. Apperley sinned by being an egotist, 

 Mr. Surtees sinned by an excess of modesty, and 

 he always had an objection to seeing his own name 

 in print. Thus we know little of his life beyond 

 the fact that he took himself for the model of 

 Charley Stubbs in Hundley Cross. He has been 

 described as very tall, but a good horseman, and, 

 without even riding for effect, he always managed 

 to see a good deal of what hounds were doing. 

 He was born and bred within hearing of Mr. Ralph 

 Lambton and his famous foxhounds, and his first 

 literary essays were accounts of their doings for the 

 old Sporting Magazine, though in 1831 he published 

 a work in which he brought to bear his education 

 as a lawyer and his tastes as a sportsman. This 

 work was called The Horseman s Manual, and was 

 a treatise on soundness, the law of warranty, and 

 on the laws relating to horses. The book now is 



