204 NIMROD'S HUNTING TOUR 



his heart, he rode up to his fatlier one day, and exclaimed, " Papa! 

 I have been before Nimkod the whole run." 



Joking apart, Godfrey Graham is a wonderful performer ; and I 

 think I may venture to call him " a promising young one." It 

 happened one day, that Mr. Henry Montague (a noted bruiser) and 

 myself got into a gentleman's pleasure-grounds, the only way out of 

 which was to drop down a sunk fence into a rocky hollow road. 

 We both dismounted ; and as I turned round to pull my mare down, 

 I perceived her shoes ivere vmch higher than my head. Our friend 

 Godfrey was close at our brush ; and, strange to say ! he rode down 

 this place, and thought it nothing. The only way to account for it 

 is, that the old mare he was on has been fourteen years in his 

 father's stable, and I suppose she let herself down the wall like a 

 cat out of a clipboard. 



It was said of the famous Duke of Cumberland that 02it of his 

 boots he was an excellent fellow, but in them he was a devil. As 

 the Duke was a soldier, this of course alluded to him when on and off 

 duty. Sir Bellingham forms something like a parallel here. Up to 

 the moment of his getting upon his hunter, and taking hold of his 

 hounds, he is one of the best-humoured men in England ; but further 

 this deponent sayeth not. I will not pronounce of him, what a 

 friend of mine used to say of a certain Noble Lord in that situation 

 — namely, that he lools as if he would bite you ; but there are times 

 when it is well not to go too near him. This doubtless arises from 

 two causes : first, his extreme anxiety to shew sport ; and secondly, 

 a consciousness o^ a superiority of judgment, which cannot well 

 brook being interfered with. Sir Bellingham also is an exception to 

 one general rule : he is less polite to his friends in the society of the 

 ladies (the bitch-pack), than he is in that of the gentlemen (the 

 dog-pack) ; but this must be attributed to the same cause. Spots 

 there are on the sun, and nothing which our eyes are permitted to 

 behold is perfect ; but take Sir Bellingham Graham as an English 

 gentleman — as a friend and a companion — in the words of a Member 

 of the Melton Old Club, as "a downright, straightforward, honest, 

 good fellow " — and though last, not least, as a master of fox-hounds 

 and a sportsman — we may say of him, as has been said of many, 

 that we shall not often " look upon his like again." 



