THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



of these essentials to true epicurean enjoyment, it is scarcely 

 necessary to make apparent. 



It having been on the first of May following the decease of 

 his uncle, that our hero took possession of Farndon Hall, 

 some account of his proceedings there may be looked for. 

 We will begin with him in his stable-yard, our fancy directing 

 us thither, in accordance with our own taste. Of his hunters, 

 not much can be said. Unprovided with accommodations for 

 summering them agreeably to the plan he had adopted in the 

 preceding spring, and which he found to answer so well, they 

 were in their old quarters at Amstead, under the care of his 

 head groom, who had nearly convinced the Scotch steward 

 that the expenses of the preceding summer had not been 

 thrown away upon them, by the superior condition of the stud, 

 and the way in which they had stood their work, without dis- 

 ease of any kind having attacked them. Let us, then, take a 

 peep into the coach-stables. 



The space of a few months, even with the aid of both 

 judgment and experience, is far too little for the selection of 

 such a stable of coach-horses as Frank Raby had got together, 

 consisting of seven greys — for, like Camillus ^ of old, that was 

 his favourite colour— one black, and two chestnut piebalds, 

 which gave him two teams, and two horses to spare, called, 

 on the road, ' rest horses.' Indeed, no man can depend on 

 having one team out of four, or two out of eight horses ; and 

 on these matters our hero had been well tutored by Sir John 

 Inkleton. Sir John, indeed, had in part assisted him in the 

 purchase of those nags, as had also a celebrated London 

 dragsman, who selected some of them out of his employer's 

 yard, money having tempted him to part with them. And, 

 in truth, there is no much better method for gentlemen to 

 adopt, in purchasing horses for their own driving, than to 

 select them from regular road work, inasmuch as, in the first 

 place, their character can be tried for goodness ; and in the 

 next, they are thoroughl}^ broken-in to face all kinds of objects 

 they may meet — the want of which confidence, in pleasure 

 horses, is the cause of half the accidents which occur. This 

 being a period when liorse-flesh was at a premium, the above 



^ History infoiMis us, tliatCiUuilhisgiivegreatoHenee to the Romans, bybeiug 

 carried through Rome in his (ihariot, drawn by four grey liorses ; nogeneral, either 

 before or since, having done the same : grey liorses were tlien liekl sacred. 



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