BREEDING OF HUNTERS. 279 



yearlings, it is very rarely that a hunter fetches more 

 than 400 gs., though 500 gs. was said to be the re- 

 serve-bid for Cock Robin at TattersalFs last autumn. 

 Sir Bellingham Graham (who always had an agent 

 in Yorkshire on the look-out) seldom sold his best 

 horses under 400 guineas, and Parchment and The 

 Baron both fetched it. "We do not find any trace of 

 the price of Norton Conyers, a chesnut horse, who 

 looked as if he could manage 20 st., and was the most 

 splendid of gate-jumpers. The handsome grey, Hes- 

 perus, a wonderful animal over a deep country, also 

 came into Mr. Foljambe's hands from the baronet, at 

 400guineas; but Will Butler, to whom hewas assigned, 

 had to do all his cub-hunting on him that season 

 before he could get him quiet. Confidence was sold 

 three or four times over, for all prices from 750 guineas 

 to 600 guineas ; and emulous of his first and last 

 owner, Mr. Lockley, who died from a fall he received 

 out hunting at four score, he lasted for nearly nine- 

 teen seasons. Some said that his price to Lord Ply- 

 mouth was 1,000 guineas, but at the end of two years 

 he was returned by his lordship to Mr. Lockley, as 

 he had become quite scaly from surfeit. The Infant, 

 a chesnut horse nearly seventeen hands high, was 

 the biggest Mr. Lockley ever rode. He bought him 

 originally 'from Lord Foley at Whitley Court, and 

 sold him, with his usual luck, to Lord Edward Mostyn 

 for 450 guineas. Lord Alvanley, who now rests, 

 after his hard-riding and jovial days, in a plea- 

 sant little grave of bay and cypress near the north 

 entrance of the Brompton Cemetery, also stuck at 

 no price ; and whenever he had given a very long 

 sum for one, he was always excessively hard upon 

 him for the first few days. A friend once asked him 

 what on earth could have made him go out of his 

 line to have a shy at the widest part of the Whissen- 

 dine, and all his reply was, ' ' Whath is the uth of 

 giving 700 guineas for a hoth, if he's not to do more 



