194 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



MR. SURTEES 



If Mr. Apperley sinned by being an egotist, as I have 

 suggested in these pages, Mr. Surtees sinned by an 

 excess of modesty, and he always had an objection to 

 seeing his own name in print. Thus we know Httle 

 of his Hfe beyond the fact that he took himself for 

 the model of Charley Stubbsin " Handley Cross." He 

 has been described as very tall, but a good horseman, 

 and, without ever riding for effect, he always managed 

 to see a good deal of what hounds were doing. He 

 was born and bred within hearing of Mr. Ralph 

 Lambton and his famous foxhounds, and his first 

 literary essays were accounts of their doings for the 

 old Sporting Magazine, though in 1831 he published a 

 work on which he brought to bear his education as a 

 lawyer and his tastes as a sportsman. This work was 

 called "The Horseman's Manual," and was a treatise 

 on soundness, the law of warranty, and on the laws 

 relating to horses. The book is now of little value, 

 but at the time of its publication it caused Mr. Surtees 

 to be recognised as an authority upon matters relating 

 to a fox-hunting stable. Owing to the death of his 

 elder brother, Anthony Surtees, on March 24, 183 1, the 

 financial position of the future famous novelist was 

 changed in a considerable degree, and in conjunction 

 with Mr. Rudolph Ackerman he started the new Sport- 

 ing Magazine, which he edited till 1836. Immediately 

 after his brother's death, in July 1831, he began to 



