The Sport of Our Ancestors 



Compared with the luxurious ease with which the 

 modern sportsman is conveyed to the field — either lolling 

 in his chaise - and - four or galloping along at the -rate of 

 twenty miles an hour on a hundred-guinea hack — the situa- 

 tion of his predecessor was all but distressing. In propor- 

 tion to the distance he had to ride by starlight were his hours 

 of rest broken in upon ; and, exclusive of the time which 

 that operation might consume, another serious one was to 

 be provided for — this was, the filling his hair with powder 

 and pomatum until it could hold no more, and forming it 

 into a well-turned knot, or club, as it was called, by his 

 valet, which cost commonly a good hour's work. The 

 protecting mud-boot, the cantering hack, the second horse 

 in the field, were luxuries unknown to him ; and his well- 

 soiled buckskins and brown-topped boots would have cut 

 an indifferent figure in the presence of a modern connoisseur 

 by a Leicestershire cover-side. Notwithstanding all this, 

 however, we are inclined strongly to suspect that, out of a 

 given number of gentlemen taking the field with hounds, 

 the proportion of really scientific sportsmen may have 

 been in favour of the olden times. 



In the horse called the hunter a still greater change 

 has taken place. The half-bred horse of the early part 

 of the last century was, when highly broken to his work, 

 a delightful animal to ride ; in many respects more accom- 

 plished, as a hunter, than the generality of those of the 

 present day. When in his best form, he was a truly- 

 shaped and powerful animal, possessing prodigious strength, 



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