MR. JOHN MYTTON. 59 



to his dinner, at which meal his appetite and digestion, until his 

 stomach was weakened by excessive indulgence in wine, were some- 

 thing astounding. His escapes were marvellous, and, so to speak, 

 miraculous. He was run away with by horses in gigs and upset 

 times without number ; left struggling in deep water without the 

 faintest knowledge of swimming ; nearly torn to pieces in street 

 brawls and rows in gambling houses, yet he came out of all unscathed. 

 Curiously enough, in a duelling age he never issued a cliallenge or 

 received one. In his management of horses he was extraordinarily 

 reckless. Driving tandem once, he wished, he said, to see if the 

 leader were a good timber-jumper, and actually put the horses at a 

 closed turnpike gate ; the leader took the gate in beautiful style, 

 but of course left the wheeler on his nose with the shafts snapped in 

 two. Neither horse nor man, however, was hurt. In the saddle, too, 

 he ran prodigious risks of his life, not only in riding at apparently 

 impracticable fences with hounds, Imt in falling from his horse when 

 intoxicated. He once actually galloped at full speed over a rabbit 

 warren to try whether or not his horse would fall, which of course it 

 did, and rolled over him. His perfect contempt of danger was truly 

 characteristic of himself; but not content with the possession of 

 it, he endeavoured to impart it to his friends. As he was one day 

 driving in a gig a gentleman who expressed a strong regard for his 

 neck, and hinted that he considered it in some danger from the 

 recklessness of his charioteer, Mytton asked, " Were you ever much 

 hm-t then by being upset in a gig ? " " No, thank God," said his 

 companion, " for 1 never was upset in one." " What ! " replied 



Mytton, ^^ never upset in a gig? What a d d slow fellow you 



must have been all your life I " And running his near wheel up the 

 bank, over they both went, fortunately without either being much 

 injured. There are many stories of his pretending to rob his friends 

 in the character of an amateur highwayman, but they are of the 

 ordinary type of such practical jokes. Once he disguised himself as 

 a beggar and begged at his own house, when he was roughly used by 

 the servants and would probably have been torn to pieces by his own 

 dogs, a modern Actaeon, had he not fled for protection to his tame 

 bear, Nell, who at once recognised her master, and, raising herself on 

 her haunches, kept both dogs and men at bay. With reference to this 

 bear there is another story. Once hearing that George Underbill, 

 the celebrated Shropshire horse dealer, was in the house on his road 

 from Chester fair, Mytton sent for that worthy, had him conducted 

 into the dining room, made him excessively drunk, and put him to 

 bed with two bulldogs and the said bear. He also once rode into 

 the dining-room mounted on the bear in full hunting costume, to 

 the dismay of the guests. The animal carried him very quietly for 

 a certain time, but on being pricked by the spur she bit her rider 

 through the calf of the leg, inflicting a severe wound. On another 

 occasion jNir. Mytton fought a savage yard dog with his fists and beat 

 it. Ho much for his courage and recklessness. 



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