340 
CURSORY REMARKS ON* 
iii binders, and many a fall in consequence. In fact, I can only 
call to mind one instance of lameness in the stifle, arising, or 
said to have arisen, from this individual cause, and that I will 
detail. During the period of Lord Middleton’s hunting War- 
wickshire, I recommended Sir John Dashwood to purchase a 
hunter at the stiff price of two hundred and fifty guineas. The 
said horse, however, having been used to carry a much heavier 
person than Sir John is, over-jumped himself at small places, 
and fatigued him ; in consequence of which he wrote to me to 
say that he would part with him at a loss of fifty guineas. 
Now, a fortnight elapsed before I found it convenient to 
make an attempt to purchase this horse, when the following 
were the results of my visit to him for the purpose. Sir 
John, loquitur, “ Well, so you have a mind to purchase 
the General ? I am sorry to say he has been very badly lamed 
since I wrote to you. I lent him to my son George (then at 
Christchurch College, Oxford, and an out-and-out good work- 
man), who thinking, I suppose, that he could fly, got his leg en- 
tangled in the branch of a pollard-tree, and sadly strained him in 
his stifle. He is now, however, sound, at least I think so ; for 
he has had a good gallop this morning, and was not lame after 
it, when he became cool. But observe this,” added Sir John : 
** I am responsible for nothing relating to the General after he 
has passed the sill of my stable-door.” This was what may be 
called a damper. However, after having ocular demonstration 
of his soundness, I purchased the General for one hundred and 
eighty guineas ; sent him that evening to Stratford-on-Avon ; 
was capitally carried by him on the following Thursday ; and 
sold him the same day, after dinner, to the Earl of Warwick, 
who rode him two seasons ; and he was afterwards in Lord Al- 
vanley’s stud, at Melton, never suffering from the accident I have 
alluded to. 9 
With all due deference, I state my opinion, that this horse was 
not injured in the stifle joint at all, but in some of the muscles — 
the triceps femoris, perhaps — with which the thigh is furnished. 
I am disposed to think that the lameness, which was very severe 
whilst it lasted, would not have been removed in so short a period 
as ten days had it been in so complicated a part as the stifle 
joint, or, indeed, in any other joint; at all events, that the horse 
would not have been sound (as he was) when delivered to Lord 
Warwick’s groom, on the morning after the splendid run which 
caused his Lordship to purchase him. However, Sir John Dash- 
wood is now alive, and can vouch for the facts here stated, as 
also can Lord Warwick. As to the hypotheses, perhaps they 
may be commented upon by Sir John, who, I will answer for it, 
