OLDEN TIMES. 71 



in short, exemplifications of walking featlier-beds ; 

 the higher bred ones showed as comparative skele- 

 tons, with their feet battered to pieces by stamping 

 at and running about to evade the flies. Yet 

 was this system held out as a sovereign invigo- 

 rator of the animal powers and spirits. I think 

 there can be scarce a doubt but the hunting 

 groom, on such horses returning to his charge, 

 treated all alike, that is, each got his three doses 

 of physic, each got the same feeding and exercise, 

 and having got this, all was considered to have 

 been done necessary to condition; the fat ones, 

 from the extra distress their load of flesh occa- 

 sioned, in time worked it off*, and the thin ones 

 from returning to proper feeding worked it on. 



This answered the moderate expectations of the 

 owners of those days ; and, fortunately for the 

 horses, the hounds were in little better wind at 

 the commencement of the season than they, and 

 going out early the fox was found, either in the 

 state of a goui'mand with his supper undigested, 

 or like the young rake, tired with his night^s 

 ramble, so he was as little disposed to go as the 

 hounds were unable to make him, or the horses 

 to follow them. I mean this in no vein of 

 ridicule; on the contrary, a great deal of real 

 hunting was seen under such circumstances, and 

 " Hark on ! the drag I hear,^^ awakens ideas of 

 really more hunting delight than a race from an 

 V 4 



