A CITY '' HUNTING MANr w 



spurs — nearly enough to supply the whole hunt of which 

 he is a member — is arranged over his mantelpiece ; 

 catalogues of sales of various kinds of horses, with, in 

 many cases, the sums they fetched written against their 

 names in pencils, strew his study ; and in a prominent 

 place is an ivory tablet with a blank space in the 

 middle surrounded by highly coloured pictures of the 

 covert side, horses, men, and hounds, and with the days 

 of the week neatly printed, against which in the hunting 

 season Checkley never fails to write down the list of 

 impending meets. 



It need hardly be said that sporting pictures cover 

 the walls of his rooms, and the passages leading thereto, 

 and that sketches of many men on many horses jump- 

 ing many fences may be noted in perspective up the 

 staircase by the observant visitor. He himself, always 

 in boots and breeches and mounted on various steeds, 

 is a favourite subject in oil, water-colours, and photo- 

 graphs — large ones. 



The only poet for whose works he cares a straw is 

 Somerville, excepting indeed Major Whyte-Melville, 

 from whom he has taken his favourite quotation. 



" Down in the hollow there, shiggish and idle 



Runs the dark stream where the willow-trecs grow ; 

 Harden your heart, and catch hold of your bridle. — 

 Steady him — rouse him — and over we go ! " 



run the lines wdiich he considers the finest in the 

 language, and which indeed have a dash and swing 

 about them that may commend the verse to the man 



