THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



that — although, perhaps, the knowledge of the savoir vivre in 

 our young sportsman was not quite so complete as in some 

 of the hoiis vivants of the day, who had more experience than 

 himself — most of the arts and appliances which render life 

 agreeable to a man in his twenty-fifth year, were to be found 

 in his house at Melton. 



But we have said nothing of his stud of hunters, selected for 

 this occasion. By the advice of his friend Somerby, whom he 

 had met in London during the season, an alteration had been 

 effected in them. 



' The eight hunters you now have,' said Somerby, ' are all 

 good and useful of their kind ; but three of them are not 

 suited for Leicestershire. In the first place, they are not well 

 enough bred for our pace and country ; and, in the next, in 

 stable language, they are deficient in scale to command and 

 to cover our large blackthorn hedges, with their wide ditches, 

 and more especially the ox fences, which require horses to 

 extend themselves in their leaps over a great space of ground. 

 Let me recommend you to draft all but those three ; and as 

 there are two lots of well-known and capital Leicestershire 

 horses coming to Tattersall's in a fortnight, you can then and 

 there replace them, as well as complete the number of your 

 stud. Do not think me conceited in thus characterising the 

 Leicestershire horse ; depend upon it, before you have hunted 

 in that country half as long as I have, you will say I have not 

 overdrawn the picture.' 



Space will not admit of our accompanying our hero during 

 the whole of his residence at Melton, which continued for nine 

 consecutive years, and where he left behind him a reputation 

 for all that is desirable in the gentleman, the companion, and 

 the sportsman ; and the character he gave of it when he 

 quitted it was, that, ' to a sportsman it was the most delight- 

 ful place upon earth ; the very centre and rendezvous of all 

 pleasures, and whatsoever is agreeable to mortals — in truth, 

 to him, an earthly paradise.' There was, in fact, but one 

 circumstance during the entire period of his sojourning 

 there, that produced an unpleasing reflection, but from the 

 relation of it here some good may arise. An unguarded ex- 

 pression from a hot-headed young Irishman, but possessing an 

 equally warm heart — the result, perhaps, of an extra bottle of 

 claret, and fliat the result of a brilliant run in the morning, 



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