{Btn i3)i)o f^uut, antJ ti)tiv Peculianttt^. 63 



always appear to do with such ease whilst turning 

 partially round in their saddles, and holding well aloft 

 their whip hands. 



To this throng also belong the liver brigade — such 

 second horsemen as are not riding pretty hard in front 

 or in rear of their respective masters, and the more 

 humane if less ambitious of the badly mounted ones. 



Before laying aside my pen, I may add that I 

 honestly do not believe this sketch to be overdraw^n, 

 although, of course, you, and I myself, and every 

 reader of it, are undoubtedly in our own opinion 

 members of the first and most exemplary division of 

 sportsmen. 



Notwithstanding this, however, I should like to 

 wager that ninety men out of every hundred who 

 appear at a meet, would (if each individual man of 

 them was started alone from a covert, with a pack in 

 full cry and a burning scent) totally lose the hounds 

 in less than half-a-mile, let the gentlemen concerned 

 be never so well mounted, and the country only a 

 moderately strong one. In all probability, indeed, the 

 majority would lose their heads in the first field, and, 

 having taken eyes off them, the hounds in the next, 

 for, alas ! how few of us there are w^ho are dependent 

 solely upon our individual abilities for the sport 

 we see ! 



