32 NIMROD QUOTED. 



such as it is, I am at your service ; I rob no man's 

 wardrobe, and hate second-hand clothes, though they 

 might have belonged to my superiors. 



"Mais apropos de bottes" apropos to writing 

 and apropos to riding, I am quite willing to subscribe 

 to the fact that Nimrod could write a chase better 

 than T ; but I must take the liberty of saying he could 

 not ride one as well ; and this is not saying much in 

 my favour in this respect either : assuming the opi- 

 nion I have stated as emanating from him, I can only 

 say I very much doubt whether in his own person he 

 ever rode at a fence in his life, where, if the specific 

 gravity of himself and horse did not break it, a regular 

 burster must have been the result. We all know that 

 horses ridden hard at fences or even timber will break 

 what we should have considered it all but impossible 

 they would even crack. I have had horses break 

 gates with me, and that both with and without getting 

 a fall ; but candour must make me allow I never rode 

 at one contemplating such a result ; nor do I conceive, 

 if any man saw Lord Maidstone now and Sir Francis 

 Burdett (when he rode) refuse a bulfinch that they 

 saw their horses could not force themselves through, 

 that he or any man would ride at it, because he 

 might weigh 17st. instead of 12st. : I mean of course 

 when such riders as I have named considered the 

 thing impracticable to them. The man would soon 

 get sick of it, and so would his horse. We know that 

 a ball of 501b. weight let fall from a height will make 

 more impression where it falls than one of 20 lb., but 

 this does not hold good in breaking fences : if it did, 

 what a devil of a fellow the famous Daniel Lambert 

 would have been on the twenty-one hands' high horse ! 

 Why, such names as Waterford, Wilton, Forester, 



