xii PKEFACE 



Perhaps no more interesting picture of the man 

 himself, nor any better praise for his Journal can 

 be found than that in the following from the poet 

 Southey, which I have already quoted in '' Along 

 the Labrador Coast," but it is worth quoting 

 again : 



'' I saw Major Cartwright (the sportsman, not 

 the patriot) in 1791. I was visiting with the 

 Lambs, at Hampstead, in Kent, at the house of 

 Hodges, his brother-in-law; we had nearly fin- 

 ished dinner when he came in. He desired the 

 servant to cut Mm a plate of beef from the side- 

 board. I thought the footman meant to insult 

 him: the plate was piled to a height which no 

 ploughboy after a hard day's fasting could have 

 levelled; but the moment he took up his knife 

 and fork and arranged the plate, I saw this was 

 no common man. A second and third supply soon 

 vanished. Mr. and Mrs. Lamb, who had never 

 before seen him, glanced at each other; but Tom 

 and I, with school boys' privilege, kept our eyes 

 riveted upon him with what Doctor Butt would 

 have called the gaze of admiration. * I see you 

 have been looking at me ' (said he, when he had 

 done). ^ I have a very great appetite. I once fell 

 in with a stranger in the shooting season and we 

 dined together at an inn. There was a leg of mut- 

 ton which he did not touch. I never make more 

 than two cuts off a leg of mutton; the first takes 

 all one side, the second all the other; and when 

 I had done this, I laid the bone across my knife 

 for the marrow. The stranger could refrain no 



