CHAP. III.] Dick Christia7t. 109 



as '^ great natural jumpers." '''Great natural jumpers/' 

 Dick was wont to affirm, '' are desperate dangerous — they 

 won't collect themselves and get out of danger : if 

 people get killed, a hundred to one them great natural 

 jumpers does it. When they are a little pumped, down 

 we comes with a smasher, and you gets killed or goes on 

 by yourself into the next field/' Dick was dead against / 

 " larking ; " and vowed that many a good fencer had 

 been disgusted by it and utterly ruined. Speaking of 

 '^ Daniel Lambert/' the celebrated welter-weight then 

 living at Stamford, he says, '' I knew Dan, and he 

 knew me. He used to dress like a groom, and lived 

 quite private. There wasn't theu much more than forty 

 stone of him, but he got to be fifty latterly. He could 

 set a ^ cock ' uncommon well, for all he could hardly get 

 near the table for his bulk. He was a cheery man in 

 company, but shyish at being looked at." The too-solid 

 flesh that would not melt from off poor Daniel's huge frame 

 brought him to a comparatively early grave ; but his 

 clothes may still be inspected on payment of a trifling 

 sum ; and a painting of him as he appeared in the flesh 

 decorates the sign-post of a small inn in his native 

 town. 



Christian's chief object of worship was Mr. Assheton 

 Smith ; and he used to say of him that ^' nothing ever 

 turned him /' and he was fond of pointing out a big 

 ravine near the " Coplow," jumped by his hero, which 

 lie described as '^ twelve feet perpendicular and twenty- 

 one across." " He got a many falls, and always 

 seemed to ride loose, and went slant ways at his jumps. 1 

 It's a capital plan ; the horse gets his measure better. ! 

 If you put his head quite straight, it's measured for him ; 



