264 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



have all sent wiry representatives of their name from 

 Yorkshire to Horncastle ; and Lincolnshire has not 

 been behindhand with Quicksilver, Hippomenes, Pil- 

 grim, Negociator, Robin Hood, Darnley, Bellerophon, 

 and Mandeville. Don Juan, with his strong but some- 

 what inelegant stock, must not be forgotten; nor 

 Orion, the sire of countless browns with especially 

 broad backs and plain tan-muzzle heads. Catterick, 

 in spite of his bad colour, has also a claim to be re- 

 membered ; and Fernhill and Humphrey are now the 

 Lincolnshire representatives of the stout Venison 

 and Sandbeck blood. The Pelhams were always 

 noted for their breed of horses, and there are but 

 few English horses that have not some distant tinge 

 in their veins of the Bay Barb and Brocklesby 

 Betty. The foundation of their more modern 

 stable-blood was laid some fifty or sixty years ago, 

 when the first Lord Yarborough bought a Sir Peter 

 mare (sister to Hermione) from Lord Grosvenor. 

 He also regularly sent his mares to Earl Fitzwilliam's 

 and Earl Egremont's crack horse, and a Driver filly 

 did great things for the Brocklesby Hunt stables. 

 Its sire was the original old Driver (the " Old, old 

 hat," in fact of Lord Palmerston's Tiverton speech), 

 and was kept by Lord Egremont on frs own pro- 

 perty between York and Beverley. The first noted 

 sire Lord Yarborough purchased was the chesnut 

 Quicksilver, a rather small horse, remarkably blood- 

 looking about the head, and with abundance of 

 quality. His stock, to which he communicated 

 great character, were nearly all chesnuts, and there 

 was no mistaking their duck noses, wide nostrils, 

 and glove-like skin. No horses were so good to 

 know. " Quicksilver for a quart/' the very labourer 

 would say to his fellow, as he plodded along the 

 road, and espied a young chesnut dancing and 

 throwing up his heels in the harrows, and the guess 

 rarely failed. The county was at one time as full of 



