vi PREFACE 



the most eminent sportsmen of their day, both by " flood 

 and field." 



It would be unfaithful to nature, and, therefore, un- 

 worthy of my pen, were I to represent my young hero as 

 totally guiltless of those common failings to which in- 

 experienced youth is, for the most part, liable ; but 1 have 

 taken especial care to keep him clear of all vicious pro- 

 pensities which disgrace the gentleman and the Christian. 

 In furtherance of this purpose, then, I occasionally place 

 him in a dangerous position, the result of overweening 

 confidence in others, so natural to ingenuous youth ; but 

 rescue him, in due time, partly by his own proper prin- 

 ciples, and also by the timely assistance of a faithful and 

 generous friend. These little aberrations are the result 

 of his quitting the noble and health-giving sports of the 

 field for the dangerous seductions of the race-course, 

 which involve him in considerable difficulties, by the 

 expenses attendant on keeping race-horses in the first 

 instance, and by the treacherous conduct of his trainer, in 

 the second. 



The situation in which I place my hero with his uncle 

 is drawn from real life, and with but few exaggerations or 

 additions. No doubt there are many such uncles, and 

 many such nephews ; and the moral to be drawn from 

 the relative situations in which I place the two in question, 

 may be neither uninstructive nor useless. Indeed, it has 

 been my design, throughout the entire of the work, to 

 impart to it a moral tone, so that, should those who may 

 read it not rise the better from the perusal, it will be 

 their own fault, and not mine. At all events, there is 

 nothing in the sentiments expressed, or the examples put 

 forth, to make them anywise the worse. 



In his character as a sportsman, I make my hero com- 

 mence with the lowest branches of the art, of which rat- 

 catching is, I believe, the type. He thence proceeds to the 

 rabbit and the badger, progressing, gradually, to the higher 

 sports of the field, and finishes as a Leicestershire fox- 

 hunter, and a horseman of the first class. I have also 

 made him a coachman that is to say, an ardent amateur 

 of the coach-box, characteristic of the era in which I 

 place him, which is, as nearly as may be, my own. In 

 truth, here I am myself, in some respects, his exemplar. 

 He commences with his pony in harness, as I myself did. 

 He then becomes a pupil of a celebrated coachman on his 



