THE CHACE. 
and, exclusive of the time which that operation might 
consume, another serious one was to be provided for 
this was, the filling his hair with powder and pomatum 
until it could hold no more, and forming it into a well- 
turned knot, or club, as it was called, by his valet, 
which cost commonly a good hour's work. The pro- 
tecting mud-boot, the cantering hack, the second horse 
in the field, were luxuries unknown to him ; and his 
well-soiled buckskins, and brown-topped boots, would 
have cut an indifferent figure in the presence of a 
modern connoisseur by a Leicestershire cover-side. 
Notwithstanding all this, however, we are inclined 
strongly to suspect that, out of a given number of 
gentlemen taking the field with hounds, the proportion 
of really scientific sportsmen may have been in favour of 
the olden times. 
In the horse called the hunter, a still greater change 
has taken place. The half-bred horse of the early part 
of the last century was, when highly broken to his 
work, a delightful animal to ride ; in many respects more 
accomplished, as a hunter, than the generality of those 
of the present day. When in his best form, he was a 
truly-shaped and powerful animal, possessing prodigious 
strength, with a fine commanding frame, considerable 
length of neck, a slight curve in his crest, which was 
always high and firm, and the head beautifully put on. 
Possessing these advantages, in addition to the very great 
pains taken with his mouth in the bitting, and an excel- 
lent education in the school or at the bar, he was what 
