A NOTICE OF NIMROD. 



Daniel's " Rural Sports," there was hardly a work of 

 any repute to turn to ; while the "Sporting Magazine" 

 was certainly "a very Cockney concern." But Ap- 

 perley braved it, and the first letter, bearing the 

 signature of " Nimrod," appeared in the New Year's- 

 number of 1822. It was upon " Fox-hunting in- 

 Leicestershire," and written just upon twenty seasons 

 since its author had first hunted in that celebrated'" 

 county. 



The success of these Letters was something extra- 

 ordinary, — they were so fresh, so genial, so full of 

 anecdote, and so happily combining the tastes of the 

 sportsman, the scholar, and the gentleman. From an 

 unknown work the " Sporting Magazine" became the 

 talk of town and country, and Nimrod's name was 

 in everybody's mouth. The price of the monthly 

 number was raised from two shillings to half-a-crown, 

 with occasional five-shilling parts, and the circulation 

 doubled in less than two years' time from his en- 

 gagement. A coach on the Southampton Road was 

 called the "Nimrod;" a "Nimrod" newspaper was 

 started; there were Nimrod breeches and Nimrod 

 blacking, and a huntsman christened his son after 

 the mighty hunter. The Letters on Hunting and 

 the Hunting Tours were varied by Papers on the 



