THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 309 



like an equality with ourselves, we make them conceited, 

 and, consequently, destroy subordination. And the ex- 

 ample is often injurious to very young men. I knew 

 one, very well connected, and with good prospects before 

 him, who began by affecting the character of a coachman, 

 and ended by adopting it, to the great mortification of his 

 family." 



" You are hitting me under the bars," said Jack Webber, 

 with one of his good-humoured smiles. 



" Present company are always excepted," replied the 

 peer ; " besides, you have resumed your place in society, 

 which, indeed, you can scarcely be said to have lost ; for 

 I know that, when you took it into your head to turn 

 coachman, you never forgot that you were a gentleman. 

 Indeed, I have been told that you were the cause of 

 working a reformation amongst your brethren of the whip 

 on the Brighton road." 



" As for myself," resumed Jack Webber, " I was never 

 happier than during the three years I was a coachman, 

 and I wish the next three years of my life may be as well 

 and profitably employed. The devil, they say, always 

 employs an idle man, but I was too busy for him, and he 

 left me alone. Idleness is the parent of all vice, both in 

 man and beast ; and, when I had done my day's work, I 

 was seldom inclined for any mischief. A newspaper, or a 

 book, with one glass of grog, after my supper, and then 

 the night-cap, formed my almost daily course." 



" But, Frank," said Lord Edmonston, " with these studs 

 of yours, both for the field and road, when will you be 

 able to find time to comply with the wishes of your late 

 uncle and father, and take a tour on the continent ? You 

 will find good account in it. You need not adopt the 

 peculiarities of one country or another ; but, rely on it, 

 travelling is very essential to men who are to live in the 

 world : it not only enlarges the mind and improves the 

 understanding, but it frees it from prejudices, which is 

 a great point gained. In the last page of a diary kept by 

 my father, when he went the grand tour, is this sentence : 

 ' I am truly glad that I have taken the advice of my 

 father, though sorely against my will, to take this tour. 

 It has dispelled prejudices, short-sightedness, and caprice, 

 to which I was previously addicted. With change of 

 place, I found my ideas were changed, as also my opinions 

 and feelings ; and, having reflected on much that I saw 



