220 Mme ot the 1!3untina''3fielD 



that he had ever possessed the marvellous physical powers 

 which enabled him to excel in every manly sport, and 

 surpass every rival among his contemporaries. 



Perhaps, had I seen ' the Squire ' in the flower of his 

 manhood, when his well-knit muscular figure was in 

 its perfection, before a hundred accidents by flood and 

 field had crippled and deformed his frame, I might 

 have found more correspondence between the real man 

 and my ideal. But I should think that, even in his 

 prime, George Osbaldeston's personal appearance must 

 have disappointed those who, having heard of his 

 matchless prowess as an all-round sportsman, saw him 

 for the first time. For there was nothing big or im- 

 posing about him. But, if there was not much of him, 

 what there was was all ' wire and whipcord.' As I heard 

 an old Manx fisherman once quaintly put it, ' God packs 

 His best stuff in small parcels.' And better ' stuff' than 

 George Osbaldeston was made of it would be hard to 

 find. 



The subject of my sketch was born in Wimpole Street 

 on the 26th of December 1787, and was the son of Mr 

 Osbaldeston, of Hutton Bushell, near Scarborough. 

 Though born in London, George Osbaldeston always 

 considered himself a thoroughbred Yorkshireman, and 

 used to lament that his mother had, in accordance with 

 a fashion among ladies of that day, come up to the 

 metropolis for her accouchement, and thus robbed him of 

 a portion of his birthright. And yet I cannot help 

 thinking that Southerners can claim almost as great 

 a share in ' the Squire ' as Northerners. For, not 

 only was he born in the south, but he learned all his 

 sportsmanship there. Mrs Osbaldeston became a widow 

 when George was but six years old, and took up her 



