4 SPEED OF DOGS AND HORSES 



being almost as extraordinary as the two runs he had 

 given, when in his prime of Hfe. 



The vexata questio as to the comparative speed of fox- 

 hounds of the last and present centuries, would in all 

 probability have been settled last spring or summer, in 

 that proposed match between horses and hounds, to be 

 decided over the Beacon course at Newmarket, by a test 

 which is infallible — time ; but as that event has not taken 

 place, I have no hesitation in stating my opinion, that 

 the hounds which might have been employed in that race 

 would not equal in speed Colonel Thornton's bitch, Merkin, 

 which ran four miles in seven minutes and half a second ; 

 or Mr. Barry's Bluecad, accomplishing the same distance 

 in eight minutes and a few seconds. I have also an im- 

 pression that in this match the horses would have beaten 

 the hounds. 



As a child, I was not nursed in the lap of luxury ; 

 and although not, like Achilles, dipped in the waters of the 

 Styx to render me invulnerable to javelins and arrows, I 

 can very well recollect being thoroughly well dipped in 

 the sea, when a squalling brat, to render me invulnerable 

 to sharp cutting winds, and to invigorate my youthful 

 frame ; and being sent at an early age to school, where I 

 had also to undergo great severities (not from my master, 

 by whom I was never struck, caned, or flogged), but from 

 senior boys, who fagged me unmercifully. My first feat 

 on horseback was from this school, some forty miles 

 distant, when I requested my father to let me ride home 

 on the commencement of the holidays, and for this pur- 

 pose a groom was sent up the previous night with my 

 pony ; which I remember becoming leg-weary at the end 

 of his journey, toppled himself over, and young Scrutator 

 with him, when within sight of dulce domum. 



