*78 HUNTING. 



also a sufficient quantity of matured horseflesh to supply his 

 wants till the new purchase shall be ripe for business. At the 

 same time the pleasure of fitting yourself in this fashion is not 

 to be gainsaid, nor the profit when all turns out well. 



But how impertinent do all warnings seem to the inex- 

 perienced man, when once he has screwed his courage up to 

 resolve on venturing for himself into these perilous places. 

 For timid as some are in these matters, when once this timidity 

 is put aside, your ' green hand ' is as ' cock-sure ' as ever was 

 Macaulay in his gayest moods. The world of horseflesh, by 

 the way, was perhaps the only department of human knowledge in 

 which that great man would at no time of his life have been 

 confident of his supremacy. Only one instance is given in 

 Mr. Trevelyan's delightful biography of his having been in the 

 saddle, and that was on the back of a diminutive Sheltie, in 

 one of his Scotch tours, while a huge native walked on guard at 

 the bridle rein. Once, when he was setting off on a visit to 

 Windsor, and it was intimated to him that a riding horse as 

 well as a carriage would be at his disposal, as he might prefer, 

 he made answer that, if the Queen wished him to ride, she 

 must send an elephant with a howdah, as he could not under- 

 take to keep his seat on any less secure conveyance. The 

 inexperienced buyer, who scorns to put his trust in a friend's 

 superior knowledge, is in the condition described by the poet : 

 Man never is, but always to be blest. 



Strange stories has he heard, too good not to be true, of all 

 manner of wiles and devices of cheats, to put it plainly 

 practised on the unwary ; but himself, he feels confident, is 

 not to be thus imposed on. Yet what experience, what know- 

 ledge, what counter- cunning, shall avail to save him from such 

 a fate as this, told in his pleasant autobiography by Mr. Yates 

 on the authority of the late Sir Alexander Cockburn ? l We will 

 tell it in Mr. Yates's own words, which are better than any we 

 could furnish : 



1 Edmund Yates, his Recollections and Experiences, ii. 134-5. 



