169 



To catch them agam, but tho' famous for speed, 



She never could touch (27) them, much less get a lead. (28) 



So dishearten'd, (29) disjointed, and beat, home he 



swings, 

 Not much unlike a fidler hung upon strings. 

 An H. H., (30) who in Leicestershire never had been, 

 So of course such a tickler (31) ne'er could have seen, 

 Just to see them throw off, on a raw (32) horse was 



mounted. 

 Who a hound had ne'er seen, or a fence had confronted. 

 But they found in such style, (33) and went off at such 



score, (34) 

 That he could not resist the attempt to see more : 

 So with scrambling, (35) and dashing, (36) and one rattling 



fall, (37) 



27. Touch. — Meaning, according to the jMelton dialect, overtake. 



28. Get a lead.— By which it is to be understood securing the privilege 

 of breaking your mck first, and when you fall, of being rode overby a 

 hundred and ninety-nine of the best fellows upon earth.to a a?m^ certainty. 



29. Nor can that astonish anyone, when it is considered what an ines- 

 timable privilege he has lost. 



30. It is not clear whether these initials are meant to apply to a Hamp- 

 shire Hog or the Hampshire Hunt. If to the hog, it does not appear that he 

 saved his bacon. 



31. Tickler (Meltonian).— A run so severe that there is no laughing at it. 



32. Raw.— A horse who knew nothing of th© business he was going about, 

 or wished to know. 



33. Style means the best possible manner of doing anythmg : as 

 for instance, when a man rides his horse full speed at double posts and 

 rails, with a squire trap on the other side (which is a moderate ditch of about 

 two yards wide, cut on purpose to break gentlemen's necks), he is then 

 reckoned to have rode at it in style, especially if he is caught in the said 

 squire trap. 



34. Score means that kind of pace which perhaps neither you nor your 

 horse ever went before, and if you have not more luck than fails to the share of 

 every first experiment of the kind, 'tis ten to one but he falls before he can 

 (what they call) get on his legs— in which case you may rest perfectly satisfied 

 that he must roll over you two or three times at least before he can stop 

 himself. 



35. Scrambling means, when a horse does not leave above three of his 

 legs behind him, and saves himself by pitching on his head. 



36. Dashing means, when a man charges a fence (which no other word 

 can express so fully), on the other side of which it is impossible to guess what 

 mischief awaits him, but where his getting a fall is reduced as nearly as pos- 

 sible to a moral certainty. 



37. Rattling fall, Q.E.D. 



