INTRODUCTION xix 



pace with the " special contributor's" expenses. His quahfications 

 for the part demand a word of explanation, for even a " Nimrod " 

 cannot burst full-blown upon an appreciative sporting public. 

 Imagination was a distinct asset in the Apperley funds, and passed 

 evidently as an inheritance from father to son. The paternal 

 Apperley was a scholar and gifted with literary attainments ; we 

 have the evidence of the son to show that. However gifted and 

 cultured were Nimrod's attainments in the classical groove, in which 

 antique field — amongst sporting writers — he figures most conspicu- 

 ously, and, as in other respects, set the fashion for pomp of learned 

 quotations (generally apposite and felicitous), upon his own showing he 

 was the poorest of dullards by comparison with his learned progenitor. 



The family traditions centred round the environments and influence 

 of the famous Sir Watkin Williams Wynn ; to the sixth Baronet 

 "the gentleman of literary attainments " filled the office of travelling 

 tutor, and, on returning from their "Grand Tour" (the customary 

 curriculum raid-w^ay in the 18th century), settled down near Wrexham, 

 Denbigh, having married a Miss Wynn. From this union, with six 

 sisters, and an elder brother, was born our first sporting author, in 

 the year 1778 it is stated. 



" My father " was a personage to the imagination of the future 

 "Nimrod." He wrote in the Sporting 3Iagazine his parent "was 

 a literary man, corresponded with Dr. Johnson (some of whose 

 literary style he acquired), read Greek before breakfast, and being 

 himself a scholar, he fondly hoped he should have made one of me ; 

 but in the weakness of his affection, being unable to say ' no,' his 

 hopes were blasted. He suffered me to follow fox-hounds in a red 

 coat and cap, like ' Puss in Boots,' before I was twelve years old; 

 so, instead of a scholar, he made me a fox-hunter, which, in my 

 humble opinion, was a much better thing." 



In this conclusion the outcome has proved that Nimrod's per- 

 spicacity was prophetic, for his early intuition in the sporting branch 

 proved a signal qualification in developing the first of sporting 

 abilities, amounting to undoubted genius, at the expense of the 

 sporting side, which was sufficiently munificent to stand the com- 

 parison. Nimrod thought it becoming to disparage the richness of 

 his classical acquirements, all of which he cleverly contrived to 



