"XX 



It has, moreover, been suggested by some, whose 

 authority I respect, that a work of this kind re- 

 quires a little more of the pedantry of slang, to 

 entitle it to a genuine sporting celebrity, while 

 others have charged me with a little excess the other 

 way. With all deference, however, to my friendly 

 critics of either class, I cannot subscribe to the 

 doctrine that slang phraseology is a necessary ac- 

 complishment even to a lover of the chase or turf. 

 Time was when none could claim the gilded spur, 

 unless the novice had first become familiarized with 

 the flash dictionary ; but as " damns have had their 

 day," so have the vulgarities of cockney aspirants ; 

 and a man may now enter with true Meltonian 

 ardour into the pleasures of the field, without 

 disqualifying himself for the elegant intercourse 

 of the drawing-room when the sport is over. 

 Sometimes the poverty of our language to express 

 ideas or actions peculiar to a pursuit which has 

 not yet attained the dignity of a science, compels 

 one to adopt the phraseology of the whipper-in ; 

 and now and then an illustration may be happily 

 derived from the terse and pointed dialect of the 

 jockey. To this extent, and no further, I wish to 

 go ; for I am so old-fashioned as to think that the 

 familiar use of low language savours more of vul- 

 garity than of wit. 



