SOME FAMOUS HORSEMEN 41 



Parker, of the Life Guards; the late Colonel John Lyster, 

 the late Mr. Charles Tollemache; the late Lord Rokeby; the 

 present Lord Rokeby ; the late Mi-. John Montague, Sir George 

 Wombwell, and Mr. Hugh Lindsay. Than the present Lord 

 Rokeby, no man was better over a country, or a finer horseman. 

 Indeed, my field occasionally contained all the hunting men from 

 all parts of England, and Scotland too ; from the Land o' Cakes 

 a downright good one came in the person of Sir David Baird. 

 It would be idle to attempt the entire list, so I have given a few 

 of the names of those who were my usual companions. 



Alas, in writing these Reminiscences, and in calling to mind 

 the kind friends and pleasant companions that used to enjoy 

 the chase with me, how many do I miss from the busy scenes of 

 life; and in indi\ idualising them, how often am I forced to 

 write those melancholy words, " the late " ! Men, younger than 

 myself, full of health and strength, have been swept away, and, 

 though now but in my fifty-third year, I find myself speaking 

 to some extent of a past generation, while at the same time my 

 own active step, thanks to the bounty of Heaven, remains, and 

 I joy in woodcraft and in rural scenes as much as ever. The 

 thing that left me, and began to lea^'e me early, was nerve over 

 a country. Nerves are strange things, and not to be accounted 

 for, and they quit the horseman at a fence, when they 

 stand by him in all else besides. Few hunting men like to 

 admit the failure of their riding nerves, and always lay their 

 having been " nowhere " in a mn to some other cause. Wine is 

 never the cause of a man's unsteadiness after dinner ; it is always 

 the apple he ate at dessert, or coming out into the open air, 

 that takes him off his legs, and makes him hold fast to the 

 ground to prevent his going any farther. In the same way 

 want of nerve never loses a man a run, whereas, if the truth 

 were told, want of nei-ve and of instant decision loses a man 

 more nans than all other contretemps put together. 



The first symptom of a man's riding nerves failing him (I 

 call them riding nerves, because they are decidedly apart from 

 other nervous sensibilities), when the rider has been a good one. 



