A NOTICE OF NIMROD. 



Middleton Stony near Bicester, with the object of 

 hunting with the Duke of Beaufort as well as the other 

 packs already named. Of course he had to ride great 

 distances, " to gallop often through the darkness of a 

 winter's night over twenty miles on a very indifferent 

 road, to a bed ordered at Banbury ; " and on one par- 

 ticular morning he rode fifty-one miles on two hacks, to 

 meet Sir Thomas and give a greeting to Griff. Lloyd. 

 From Warwickshire Mr. Apperley went to Bitterley 

 Court in Shropshire, and while there joined his friend 

 Colonel Gould as Captain in the Nottingham Militia. 

 In 1817 he was living at Breewood in Staffordshire, 

 and, coming on to London, conceived, under the pres- 

 sure of some pecuniary difficulties, the idea of writing 

 a book. 



During this period, however, it should be said that 

 Mr. Apperley had been qualifying himself for such a 

 work in other ways. He was in good practice as a 

 gentleman jockey, was a member of the Kingscote 

 Club, and had now and then a horse in training — ■ 

 Victorine amongst others. Then, he knew most of 

 the coachmen on the road, and when he got on the 

 mail he generally drove it ; but he never was " master 

 of a greyhound in my life," had an invincible dislike 

 to the rising fashion of battue shooting, and, though 



