"keep TIIEIIl HEADS STRAIGHT, TIIEY'lL ALL JUMP." 159 



the pleasing addition of his. But a far more sensible 

 reason for liking a fast one is this : if he can trot at 

 the rate of seventeen miles an hour, going at the rate 

 of ten is play to him. So it is with a hunter : if he is 

 fast enough to catch hounds, he can go with them 

 without distress as to pace : if he is not fast, and very 

 fast, he cannot, and indeed not always even when he 

 is. Speed I must maintain to be the first thing to 

 look at in purchasing a hunter, or a horse to make 

 one of ; and if my friends will be kind enough to find 

 me in speed, I will find myself in neck and jumping. 



Comparatively speaking, they can all jump if we 

 choose to make them : but they cannot all go. There 

 is not one horse in fifty, with the size, shape, make, 

 and breed of a hunter, that cannot if he pleases take 

 any ordinary fence we meet with in crossing a coun- 

 try. I may be told that perhaps he may not please 

 to do this : this is by no means improbable : we see 

 this sometimes with the best of them, even with 

 steeple-chase horses. In such a particular case, and 

 at that particular fence, we may possibly be beat ; but 

 if he in a general way should not please to jump, he 

 must then put his patience and determination to the 

 test with mine. I will answer for it, in nineteen 

 cases out of twenty I teach him he must jump when 

 and where / please : but I cannot make him go if 

 there is no go in him, and it would be folly and cruelty 

 to attempt it. Head^ hands and heels may make him 

 a fencer, but they can't make him a goer. 



We are told that hounds must now-a-days be very 

 fast to kill their foxes ; that " meets " being often at 

 eleven o'clock, unless hounds get on the best pos- 

 sible terms with their fox, they cannot hunt him : 

 granted. I am afraid that something like Abernethy's 



