Captain 3obn Mbite i.^o 



sensuous phases, as they could within the Hmit of three 

 score and ten. But, with all their faults, they were men, 

 and their nerve and dash in the hunting-field were at 

 least as conspicuous as their prowess at the table. 



Here, for example, is ' Nimrod's ' tribute to John 

 White : ' Captain White may be safely placed among 

 the hardest and best riders of England ; and, taken in 

 the double capacity of a rider of races and a rider to 

 hounds, is decidedly the very best. I consider him, 

 indeed, the exemplar of horsemen, for he has every 

 attribute. In addition to an elegant seat, he has fine 

 hands, a quick eye, good temper, and undaunted nerve, 

 despite the awful falls he has had. With hounds, it 

 has been said, he has never been out in his life, whether 

 he liked his horse or not, that he did not try to get 

 to them. And it will be remembered he once played 

 a duet with Mr Assheton Smith when every other man 

 was beaten, viz., on that memorable Belvoir day when 

 hounds ran nineteen miles point blank, as the song said — 



" White on the right, sir, 'midst the first flight, sir, 

 Is quite out of sight of those in the rear.'' ' 



It was during his residence at Melton that Captain 

 White performed one of his greatest feats of endurance. 

 He went to meet Lord Lonsdale at a favourite covert 

 close to Uffington, and had two capital runs, one of 

 forty minutes, and the other of an hour and ten minutes, 

 killing both their foxes. Having left off twenty miles 

 from Melton, he rode back there, changed his things, 

 and having had a cup of tea and a chop, he rode home, 

 seventy-five miles, crossing the Peak of Derbyshire in 

 a snowstorm, and reached Park Hall, where he resided, 

 at eleven o'clock at night, having got over one hundred 

 and fifty miles of country since his breakfast time. 



