244 THE HORSE. 



• 



was the since celebrated Nimrod, who has, in very 

 deed, turned up a trump, and of whom we may justly 

 say — a greater than Beckford is here. He has regu- 

 larly continued his valuable communications from 

 that period, and has been also the means of encou- 

 raging other gentlemen, of high qualifications and 

 ability, to contribute their quota towards rendering 

 the Sporting Magazine a complete history of the 

 annual transactions of the field. 



My late controversy with Nimrod, and Co., on 

 " summering the hunter" is well known to all readers 

 of the Sporting Magazine, and, as I had not altoge- 

 ther fair play in those pages, I shall take some 

 further notice of the subject in the present. Nimrod, 

 in his earliest communications, introduced his fa- 

 vourite plan of summering the hunter in the stable. 

 Convinced, from long experience, and from the supe- 

 rior experience of a vast majority of the keepers of 

 hunters in these kingdoms, of the obvious preference 

 due to the established and contrary practice, I, with- 

 out hesitation, or the slightest suspicion that I should 

 thereby give offence, addressed a letter to the Maga- 

 zine, stating my sentiments in the premises. In 

 consequence I was very shortly afterwards attacked, 

 in no very measured or complacent terms, by Nimrod, 

 backed by, I conceive, a warm-headed band of juve- 

 nile sportsmen (Nimrod himself, indeed, no chicken), 

 aniong whom was the late unfortunate and lamented 

 Lord Harley, who attacked me Hudibrastically, in 



" Words far bitterer than wormwood, 

 That would in Job, or Grizel stir mood." 



