PURCHASING HOESES. 103 



collectively very much the reverse. It is true they 

 were mostly highly bred — many of them quite well 

 enough so, to be fitted in that particular to cross the 

 fastest countries in England. Many of them had 

 perhaps speed enough to win a Hunter's Plate ; but 

 they were most of them great overgrown horses, that 

 had run to height without regard to substance. They 

 were always in high condition, arising from a great 

 number being kept to do the work ; so none of them 

 were seen, if at all, in stable language, "below them- 

 selves." Their condition and harness hid a vast 

 number of imperfections ; but if even seen, their 

 style of going made you overlook it. 



There can be no doubt that, if a man had had per- 

 mission to pick the stables, he could have found 

 among them a horse or horses that would have 

 made first class hunters ; but it would have been but 

 few, for if he saw these horses out of their harness, 

 and consequently out of action, he would have found 

 them to be great, long, gangling, flat-sided, hght- 

 bodied animals, that though imposing enough to look 

 at side-ways and going, if looked at standing still 



