X PREFACE. 



individuals ; but if we were to put him into the 

 hands of one who in a gentlemanly way enjoyed 

 the good things of life, and moreover was some- 

 what of a bon vivant, such a man would com- 

 mand attention from his more intemperate pupil ; 

 and if he represented and deprecated the de- 

 grading and demoralizing effects of habitual 

 inebriety, his precepts would be acknowledged 

 as truths, when the best discourse on the sub- 

 ject that ever came from the lips of the divine, 

 would be unattended to by the reprobate, if we 

 even succeeded in getting him into a situation to 

 hear it. 



As a man known to have been, in sporting 

 phrase, '' at all in the ring " in British sports 

 (save deer stalking), the reader need fear no 

 overstrained sensibility from Harry Hieover. Not 

 having been particularly careful of my own neck, 

 I have not hesitated in risking at times that of 

 my horses ; never having shrank from strong 

 personal exertion in sporting pursuits, I have 



