167 



Old Gradus, (17) whose fretting and fuming at first, 

 Disqualified strangely for sucli a tight burst, 

 Ere to Tilton arriv'd ceas'd to pull and to crave, 

 And tho' freshish at Stretton lie stepp'd a Pas grave, 

 Where, in turning him over a cramp kind of place. 

 He overturned G-eorge, whom he threw on his face ; 

 And on foot to walk home it had sure been his fate. 

 But that soon he was caught, and tied up to a gate. 

 Near Wigston occurred a most singular joke : 

 Captain Miller avow'd that his leg he had broke. 

 And bemoan'd in most piteous expressions how hard, 

 By so cruel a fracture, to have his sport marr'd. 

 In quizzing his friends he felt little remorse, 

 To finesse the complete doing up of his horse. 

 Had he told a long story of losing a shoe. 

 Or of laming his horse, he very well knew 

 That the Leicestershire creed out this truism worms, 

 *'Lost shoes and dead beat are synonymous terms." (18) 

 So a horse must here learn, whatever he does, 

 To die game, as at Tyburn, and " die in his shoes." 

 Bethel Cox and Tom Smith, Messieurs Bennet and 



Hawke, 

 Their nags all contrived to reduce to a walk. 

 Maynard's Lord, who detests competition and strife. 

 As well in the chase as in social life. 

 Than whom nobody harder has rode in his time. 

 But to Crane (19) now and then now thinks it no crime, 

 That he beat some crack riders most fairly may crow. 



17. Mr. George Ellis's horse. 



i8._ Indeed, so implicit is this article of the Meltonian belief, that many a 

 horse, in addition to the misfortune of breaking a hoof from losing his shoe, 

 has laboured likewise under the aforesaid unavoidable imputation, to his 

 everlasting disgrace. 



19. Crane.— The term derives its origin from the necessary extension of 

 neck of such sportsmen as dare to incur the reproach by venturing to look 

 before they lecp. 



