PREFACE 



his own proper principles, and also by the timely assistance of a faith- 

 ful and generous friend. These little aberrations are the result of his 

 q^uitting the noble and health-giving sports of the field for the 

 dangerous seductions of the race-course, which involve him in con- 

 siderable difliculties, by the expenses attendant on keeping race-horses 

 in the first instance, and by the treacherous conduct of his trainer, 

 in the second. 



The situation in which I place my hero Avith his uncle is drawn 

 from real life, and with but few exaggerations or additions. No doubt 

 there are many such uncles, and many such nephews ; and the moral 

 to be drawn from the relative situations in which I place the two 

 in question, may be neither uninstructive nor useless. Indeed, it has 

 been my design, throughout the entire of the work, to impart to it a 

 moral tone, so that should those who may read it not rise the better 

 from the perusal, it will be their own fault, and not mine. At all 

 events, there is nothing in the sentiments expressed, or the examples 

 put forth, to make them anywise the worse. 



In his character of a sportsman, I make my hero commence with 

 the lowest branches of the art, of which ratcatching is, I believe, the 

 type. He thence proceeds to the rabbit and the badger, progressing, 

 gradually, to the higher sports of the field, and finishes as a Leicester- 

 shire fox-hunter, and a horseman of the first class. I have also made 

 him a coachman — that is to say, an ardent amateur of the coach-box, 

 characteristic of the era in which I place him, which is, as nearly as 

 may be, my own. In truth, here I am myself, in some respects, his 

 exemplar. He commences with his pony in harness, as I myself did. 

 He then becomes a pupil of a celebrated coachman on his road, as was 

 my own case ; and, at length, he is not only considered safe — that is, 

 fit to be trusted with the ribbons — but possesses as much execution 

 on the coach-box as falls to the lot of most aspirants to the very 

 difficult art ; and, at length, I place him in a very trying position. By 

 the death of his elder brother, his uncle, and his father, he becomes 

 possessed of great wealth, and he does not abuse the boon. On the 

 contrary, he endeavours to follow his father's example in fulfilling the 

 duties of his station, and I leave him in the possession of the esteem 

 of his neighbours and friends, without which the riches of a Crcesus 

 aff"ord little real satisfaction to the possessor of them. 



Then I had another object in my view. The most careless observer 

 of the course of worldly afi"airs must be aware that — as has been the 

 case in all ages — in proportion as a country has arrived at the highest 

 pitch of wealth and refinement, the taste for the humble, but nearly 

 unalloyed pleasures of a country life, has more or less declined. 



A tendency to this decline has been, to a certain extent, observable 



vi 



