A BLACK DEAUGHT. 287 



dealer) talk of his champagne to customers, some of 

 whom, being deeply dipped with him, bear with his 

 impertinence (I pity the man who is). A nobleman 

 taking champagne at the table of a flash horse-dealer 

 is, I conceive, an occurrence more to be "honoured in 

 the breach than the performance ; " but a refusal might 

 for sundry reasons be made unpleasant to His Lord- 

 ship : so, as I give him credit for feeling the " per- 

 formance" unpleasant, it is something like a dose of 

 physic, neither pleasant in the breach nor the per- 

 formance, so the sooner it is got rid of the better. 

 From such dealers as do not advertise " fifty young 

 sound fresh horses from Horncastle fair," we may 

 also get horses of whose merits, when we come to use 

 them, we may judge from their having been at work : 

 so it is our own fault if we are much deceived in them ; 

 for though we are not in the hands of one of the High- 

 flyers, we are in those of a respectable man (we mean 

 by and by to have a look at the regular coper who 

 lives by screws). From respectable middling dealers, 

 numbers of good horses, and good hunters too, are to 

 be got ; and if a man wants a horse to go to work, he 

 is much more likely to suit himself with them than 

 with the generality of those who deal in higher-priced 

 horses ; for if the latter only get fashionable-looking 

 ones, their object is attained. 



A purchaser should always bear in mind what it is 

 that brings horses to moderate prices : it is in the 

 generality of cases one of these drawbacks — want of 

 beauty, Avant of action, want of soundness, or want of 

 temper ; for if a horse is perfectly sound, free from 

 all vice, has beauty and fine action, he cannot be 

 bought of any dealer under a high figure. Still such 

 a horse certainly may be purchased for nearly half 



