THE HORSE. 229 



and from their Chords' sides, at four or five o'clock 

 in a winter's morning, to a breakfast by candlelight, 

 in order to a party of pleasure in the dark fog and 

 mist, over wet and poachy lands, amidst all the hor- 

 rors and chills of a late autumnal or winter's morn- 

 ing. Methinks, I have before my eyes the vision of 

 a field of these mighty hunters ! sitting upon their 

 horses, awaiting the huntsman's " halloo!" or at a 

 check, blowing their glove fingers, striking their 

 hands against their sides, and on the whole, look- 

 ing wondrous wise. These things certainly go off 

 better by a good light, in itself of no slight conse- 

 quence to the sport and to safety ; the later morning 

 giving a better chance for the clearing off the fogs, 

 and the improvement of the. weather. 



The old English hunter, according to concur- 

 ring tradition, was a strong half bred horse, many of 

 these belonging to the yeomanry, being bred between 

 the racer and the lighter kind of cart mare. The 

 hounds being heavy eared and slow, in course, speed 

 was not the prime qualification required in the horse. 

 It must have been upwards of seventy or eighty 

 years since this slow system of hunting was universal 

 in England ; subsequently to which, it began gra- 

 dually and partially to give way, actual improve- 

 ment, even to the top standard of the present day, 

 having taken place though to a limited extent, more 

 than half a century past. At that period, the genuine 

 old English hunter, a breed destined in a few years 

 to become extinct, was seldom seen but in those ob- 

 scure parts of the country, which fashion had not 

 thitherto pervaded ; not but that in the comparative 

 few great breeding studs of ancient times, when they 



