WARWICKSHIRE 33 



for the purpose of seeing him ; but he could not be found, though 

 not far from home at the time, and so missed the intended honour. 

 Exclusive of his fine judgment of a hunter, and his excellence in 

 riding him, he had a way of insinuating a customer into a purchase 

 which it was more than difficult to withstand. His flow of language 

 was particularly good ; and he wanted nothing but education, and 

 the models of the great pleaders of antiquity, to have fitted him for 

 the Bar or the Senate. Indeed, on one occasion, he was told by a 

 certain Baronet w^ell known o}i the road, that during the time he had 

 had the honour of sitting in the British Parliament, he had never 

 heard any one talk half so much to the purpose as himself. 



In Warwickshire's best day — when Mr. Corbet hunted it — it w^as 

 not unusual for Bradley to have sixty or seventy first-rate hunters 

 in his stables at one time, and he had, generally, three or four out 

 with the hounds on the same day. He rode admirably to hounds 

 himself, and he had a lad called " Harry " in his service, whose 

 hand on a hoi^se was so fine, and his nerve so good, that he could 

 make a raw horse into a hunter in three or four of his lessons with 

 hounds. It was sometimes, however, laughable to see the different 

 figure that some of these newly-wrought hunters, which had carried 

 Harry so well one day, made on the next, when they lost the 

 assistance of his directing finger, and found the no favorable 

 addition of four or five stone on their backs with a clumsy rider. 

 All that could be said on that subject was, that Mr. Bradley sold the 

 horse, l)ut not the rider. 



There was another horse-dealer within a morning's ride of Strat- 

 ford, who was a conspicuous character in his way. His name was 

 Stroud, and he lived at a small village called South Newington, on 

 the road from Chipping Norton to Banbury. He was allowed to be 

 a superior judge of horses to carry high weights, for which he gave 

 large prices ; but he never suffered them to be ridden with hounds, 

 on the principle, that, exclusive of the danger attending it, Jiesh 

 covers many faults. Stroud was supposed to have been of Egyptian 

 descent, which the cast of his countenance bespoke. He was, how- 

 ever, a fair dealer, and bought a good sort of horses. From his 

 vicinity to Oxford, he had caught hold of some scraps of Latin. 

 On showing a horse one day to an Oxonian, who objected to his 



D 



