Title: The Sporting Dictionary, and Rural Repository, Volume 1 (of 2)
Author: William Taplin
Release date: March 17, 2019 [eBook #59076]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Chris Pinfield and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
Transcriber's Note:
Variations in spelling, punctuation and the use of hyphens have been retained. Apparent typographical errors have been corrected.
His Majesty's Harriers.
INSCRIBED TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE EARL OF SANDWICH,
Master of His Majesty's Stag Hounds.
BY
WILLIAM TAPLIN,
Author of the Gentleman's Stable Directory.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON.
Printed by Thomas Maiden, Sherbourn-Lane,
FOR VERNOR AND HOOD, LONGMAN AND REES,
J. SCATCHERD, J. WALKER, AND J. HARRIS.
1803.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE
EARL OF SANDWICH,
MASTER OF HIS MAJESTY's STAG HOUNDS.
It is now twenty Years since your Lordship's Appointment to the Head of his Majesty's Hunting Establishment, during which it has acquired a Degree of Perfection and Celebrity, hitherto unprecedented in the Annals of Sporting History. From the impressive Influence of your Lordship's philanthropic Representations, every Subordinate within the utmost Limits of your Lordship's Department, has derived an annual Addition, by which the domestic Comforts of his Family have been most happily encreased. The Hospitalities of Swinley Lodge[1] are universally known, and at all Times gratefully recollected, by that Infinity of Sportsmen who have so repeatedly experienced their salutary Effects.
To have had the inexpressible Happiness of partaking with your Lordship the Pleasures of the Chase during the Whole of that Period; to have witnessed your Lordship's humane, polite, and condescending Attention to various Individuals, upon the most distressing Emergencies; to have been repeatedly honoured by your Lordship's public Patronage and private Favor; are Gratifications of so much Magnitude to the Ambition of a Sportsman, that it is impossible to resist the Temptation of dedicating to your Lordship, a Work solely appertaining to the Sports of the Field; and of publicly soliciting Permission to continue,
[1] The official Hunting Residence of the Master of the Stag Hounds in Windsor Forest.
The variety of Publications annually announced under SPORTING TITLES, with which the contents, upon examination, are found so ill to accord, first suggested to the Writer, the idea of forming an aggregate of information, from whence both entertainment and instruction (to the young and inexperienced) might be derived. From a review of the works now extant, under titles nearly similar, it was found they were the productions of more than a century past. These having been repeatedly re-copied, and repeatedly transmitted from one generation to another, are replete with matter nearly obsolete, and sports long since buried in oblivion. From these facts may be inferred, the very trifling utility such books are of in the improved sports and refined polish of the present time; more particularly when one just and emphatic remark from the pen of a most popular writer is adverted to, that there is no subject upon which so little has been judiciously written, as upon the SPORTS of the FIELD; and what has issued from the press under titles of attracting similitude, have been much more the efforts of theoretic lucubration, than the result of practical knowledge, or personal experience.
To compensate for such deficiency, is the professed purport of the present Work; calculated to recommend itself to public attention upon no other ground than its originality, and the great variety of useful information it will be found to comprehend. Numerous and diversified as the subjects are, they will be found largely treated on, and satisfactorily explained: not as has been too much the case in former publications, by the effusions of literary fertility, but clearly demonstrated upon the practical knowledge, and individual experience, of the Author; who, disdaining the subservient trammels of imitation, has not presumed to enter into a diffuse disquisition upon any SPORT or SUBJECT in which he has not been personally and principally engaged. If the mind of man can be candidly admitted to derive some gratification from its universality of rational attainment, so it is the greatest and most consolatory ambition of his life, to have engaged in every sport, and to have embarked in every pleasure, upon which these Volumes will be found to treat; without a deviation from the line of consistency, a debasement of dignity, or a degradation of character.
It is a long standing and universally acknowledged axiom, that the art of life consists as much in knowing what to avoid, as what to pursue; and this cannot apply with more force or propriety, than to those who throw themselves unthinkingly upon the fascinating prospects, and uncertain chances, of the SPORTING WORLD; the necessitous and determined dependents upon which are replete with numerous barbed and unerring instruments of depredation. To juvenile adventurers, who feel themselves inadequate to the talk of self-denial, and who cannot resist the predominant temptation of engaging in scenes of such duplicity and danger, is earnestly recommended an occasional reference to those heads in the following Work, which are fully fraught with precautions they may probably stand much in need of; amongst these, BETTING, COCKING, GAMING, HAZARD, and the TURF, will not be found the least conspicuous; the delineations of which are taken with so much accuracy, that the most tenacious professor of the arts cannot feel himself materially affected by the correctness of the description.
Professed SPORTSMEN of every other description will find no unfair restraint laid upon their distinct or separate inquiries, or investigations. The HORSE will be found very fully expatiated upon in all its states and stages, as well in SICKNESS as in HEALTH. The CHASE, of every particular kind, will be found to have undergone the most minute description; and its numerous appendages proportionally explained. The existing GAME LAWS are simplified, and reduced to one comprehensive single point of view. Lovers of the TURF will find themselves gratified with a recital of its past and present state; as well as with a correct account of the recent racing performances of some of the most celebrated horses of the present time. That there will be discovered some traits not perfectly pleasing to every individual must be presumed; but as they are not written by the pen of prostitution, no apology can be necessary for the unavoidable introduction of TRUTH, particularly under the scholastic retrospection of
"Vain his attempt who strives to please ye all."
The
SPORTING DICTIONARY.
,—who have dedicated much time and labour to the infinity of subjects which these Volumes will contain, have been both numerous and respectable; and to those who are accustomed to see things through a single medium, it will seem matter of surprise, that any thing NEW, INSTRUCTIVE, or ENTERTAINING, should be still left worthy of public attention; but when the unceasing influence, and decisive dictates of fashion; the abolition of old sports, and introduction of new; the various regulations in, and increase of, the penal laws for the preservation of GAME, and the privileges of killing; in addition to the great and unprecedented national exertion in the reformation of FARRIERY, since the publication of the present Author's Stable Directory, are taken into the aggregate; it will be found, by the judicious and enlightened part of the SPORTING WORLD, that a more modern, comprehensive, and explanatory work, has not been too soon obtruded upon PUBLIC PATRONAGE. To enumerate individually here, those Authors, of the greatest celebrity, whose endeavours or productions have stood the highest in general estimation, would prove not only unnecessary, but superfluous, as they will of course be occasionally adverted to, and remarked upon, under different heads in the progress of the Work.
—are gentlemen, the aid of whose pencils, in the decorative department of sporting publications, is considered so immediately necessary (particularly with the younger branches) in all matters of minutiæ requiring accurate representation, that the success is frequently considered doubtful and uncertain without the attractive influence of their professional exertions. It has been observed, and must be freely admitted, that, till within the last third of the last century, HORSES, DOGS, and GAME, have appeared less upon canvas (in proportion to the progress of the art) than any subjects whatever: whether they were thought less worthy the study and pencil of the master, or productive of less emolument, it may not be possible, nor is it much to the purpose, to ascertain. Certain it is, they have never, at any former period, so nearly approached the summit of perfection as at the present moment; never were artists known more emulous; never were finer pictures produced by the foreign pencils of fertility, than are now exhibited by the natives of our own island; nor ever were artists of this description so largely patronized, or so well rewarded.
Elmer, whose paintings of GAME excited the astonishment and admiration of every beholder for forty years past, has lately paid his last debt, with one of the best and most unsullied characters that ever accompanied man to the grave: but what is equally to be regretted, is the total destruction and loss of his very valuable collection (soon after his death) by an accidental fire near the Haymarket, where they had been but lately deposited and arranged for exhibition; constituting an irreparable misfortune to those whose property they were become by his decease, and no small disappointment to CONNOISSEURS, amongst whom they would most probably have been divided at some future period by public sale.
The PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS, or, as they are now more familiarly termed, animal painters, who derive present advantage from public protection and personal popularity, are not numerous, but truly respectable; each enjoying the happy effect of his own peculiar excellence, in the gradations of favour, a discriminating and indulgent public is always so truly ready to bestow. Of these, the names of Stubbs, Gilpin, Marshall, Garrard, and Sartorius, appear the most prominent. Others there are, but of much inferior note, who do not at present promise (by the specimens they have displayed) to soar above the planetary influence of mediocrity. Various productions of the rest of those just mentioned, have for years in succession graced the exhibition of the Royal Academy at Somerset House, where they have been as repeatedly honoured with ROYAL as with general approbation: but whether it is owing to a superiority of good fortune, or to a superiority of his genius, Marshall is the only instance of an artist's having so early in life, and with so much rapidity, reached the summit of princely patronage, as well as the very zenith of professional celebrity, without having once submitted a single production of his pencil to the caprice of public opinion at the shrine of fashion, hitherto considered the only possible and direct road to Fame and Fortune.
.—An abscess (in either man or beast) is an inflammatory tumour, constituting a progressive formation of matter from some serious injury previously received by blow, bruise, or accident. It may also proceed from plethora, or gross humours originating in a too viscid (or acrimonious) state of the blood; as well as a morbid disposition of the fluids; and many degrees of latent ill usage, to which HORSES are incessantly subject, from the too well-known and irremediable inhumanity of the lower classes, to whose superintendence and management they are unavoidably, and must inevitably, continue to be entrusted. From whatever cause an abscess may proceed, judicious discrimination should be expected and enjoined from the practitioners employed; many of whom (particularly of the old school) possess, and indulge in, the unhappy fatality of endeavouring to counteract Nature, and to set all her powerful efforts at defiance. Under this mistaken notion of scientific practice, in such and similar cases, great difficulties frequently arise; not more in respect to the very evident ill effect of erroneous treatment, but in the disappointment occasioned by a procrastination of cure.
The very basis and foundation of an abscess being a cavity continually enlarging internally by the propulsive force of matter collecting within, will sufficiently demonstrate the inconsiderate folly, and extreme obstinacy, of endeavouring to repel, by the interposing and improper power of spirituous repellents, or saturnine astringents, what Nature is making her most strenuous efforts to discharge. In all slight and superficial appearances of tumefaction, where there are no immediate or strong signs of suppuration, the use of moderate repellents may be adopted with judgment, and in most cases with success; but when the predominant, and almost invariable, symptoms of increased swelling, great heat, with pricking and darting sensations, (in the human frame,) or visible increase of the enlargement, and palpable pain upon pressure, in the HORSE, denote the formation of matter to be going on, all attempts at repulsion must be instantly laid aside; not only as nugatory, but as tending to mischief in the extreme. Such treatment persevered in, would evidently not only retard, but positively destroy, every chance of ultimately effecting a purpose, for which alone the experiment could have been made. The consequence would soon prove decisive, by a termination in either an indurated tumour, a fixed schirrus, a partial and imperfect suppuration, a fistulous wound, or an inveterate and ill-conditioned ulcer. As, however, it is not intended to extend the Work to a complete system of ANATOMY, SURGERY, PHYSIC, or FARRIERY, but to render its utility more general and diffusive, reference must be occasionally and necessarily made to the professors of either, or to the books particularly appropriated to the subject of each.
,—which for time immemorial has been in use to signify a seminary for youth only, has at length acquired, by the refinement of fashion, the honour of giving more dignity to what has hitherto passed under the denomination of A RIDING SCHOOL; now transformed, by the sublimity of the superior classes, into an "EQUESTRIAN ACADEMY;" of which more will be found under the proper and distinct heads of Manege and Riding School.
—is almost obsolete, and will be buried in oblivion with the last FARRIER of the old school. It has been formerly used to signify an injury sustained in the foot by shoeing; as when a nail had swerved from its proper direction, and punctured (or pressed too close upon) the membranous mass so as to occasion lameness, the horse was then said to be "accloyed:" but no well-founded derivation is to be discovered for a term of so much ambiguity.
;—pain arising from different causes, originating in blows, wounds, inflammations, and colds; as for instance, the CHRONIC RHEUMATISM, which may be termed a CONTINUAL ACHE.
—is a state of the blood disposed to only certain degrees of disease, by the quantity of serum becoming too great for the proportion of crassamentum, with which, in its state of active fluidity, it is combined for the purpose of regular circulation, so invariably necessary to the standard of health. Blood thus divested of its adhesive property, soon displays in HORSES a tendency to what are termed acrimonious diseases, originating in, and dependent upon, the impoverished state to which it is reduced. Hence arises a train of trouble and disquietude more vexatious than alarming, more troublesome than expensive; as cracked heels; cutaneous eruptions of the dry and scurfy kind; a dingy, variegated, unhealthy hue of the coat; and frequently a seemingly half starved contraction of the CREST. These palpable effects of acrimony in the blood, are produced much more by the penury and indifference of the master, (or the neglect of his servant,) than any disposition to disease in the horse. Experience has sufficiently proved, that a sufficient quantity of proper and healthy food is so indispensably requisite for the support of the frame, and every office of the animal œconomy, that a want of such due supply must be productive of acrimony in a greater or a less degree; to obtund which, and counteract its effects, recourse must be had to alimentary invigorants and antimonial alteratives, as will be found more medically explained in "The Gentleman's Stable Directory;" or, "Taplin's Compendium of Farriery."
—is a word in constant use with the SPORTING world, and horse-dealing fraternity, to express the peculiar property of a horse by his good or bad action: speaking of him as a subject possessing superior powers, he is called "a horse of exceeding fine action;" meaning it to be understood, he is not to be found fault with; that he is calculated to make a very valuable roadster, "as he trots within himself (that is, with ease to himself) fourteen or fifteen miles an hour;" implying an unequivocal proof of his speed in that pace: that he goes in high style, "well above his ground;" meaning, that he lifts his legs light, quick, and freely, without dwelling or tripping, so as to be entitled to the degrading appellation of "a daisy cutter," by going too near, and of course always liable to fall.
,—a term indiscriminately applied to the bites or stings of venomous animals and insects without distinction; and this probably arose from the frequent discovery of such accidents, without being able to ascertain the cause, or from what enemy the injury was sustained. HORSES, as well as DOGS, are sometimes bit by the VIPER, (called an adder,) slow-worm, or eft; but much more frequently stung by hornets, wasps; a large gold-coloured, long-bodied, glittering fly, called, "a horse-stinger;" or other poisonous insects, with which, in the summer months, the sunny banks of pastures so infinitely abound. In all injuries of this kind, bleeding (pretty freely in respect to quantity) should precede every other consideration; as instantly unloading the vessels must greatly contribute to the intent of reducing present and preventing farther inflammation. For some generations, unctuous and oily applications have been in general use, without any well-founded reason, or established proof, of their being either infallible or efficacious; but in the present and enlightened state of much-improved practice, frequent fomentations of warm vinegar, an aqueous solution of sal. armoniac, or the vegeto mineral water of a pretty strong consistence, may be safely and advantageously preferred; assisting the general effort with small doses of nitre and gum arabic, to allay inflammation, and attenuate the blood.
—is the too prevalent custom of lowering the strength of spirits by the profitable addition of water, thereby reducing the quality by increasing the quantity; or, in words of less paradoxical import, by a most deceptive prostitution of integrity on one side, and an equally shameful imposition upon friendly confidence on the other. This species of lawless tergiversation, bad as it is, cannot be considered so truly unprincipled, so strictly iniquitous, or so cruelly destructive, as the adulteration of medicine: this has been for a long time past the purest privilege of the profession, and may be candidly concluded the most predominant and best-founded reason that can be assigned for the unprecedented increase of CHEMISTS and DRUGGISTS in every part of the kingdom. The superior art of adulteration consists (with the adept) in so securely incorporating the cheap and inferior substitute with the genuine and higher priced article of the Materia Medica, as to insure the additional profit, and (secundum artem) escape detection. To this purity of principle, this species of professional privilege, it is, that individuals of opulence and liberality stand indebted for the disappointments they have experienced in the expected efficacy of "prescriptions faithfully prepared."
.—The age is generally a leading question respecting any horse offered for sale; and this is at all times to be ascertained with more certainty by the state of the TEETH than any other means whatever; unless he has undergone the secret operation of a DEALER, known by the appellation of "bishoping," which will be found described under that head.
When a horse is more than six years old, he is then termed an aged horse; from which time till seven, the cavities in his teeth fill up; and from seven to eight years old, (varying a little in different subjects,) the mark is entirely obliterated, by which his age can no longer be perfectly known. Deprived of this criterion, general observations must be resorted to, upon which only a tolerable (though sometimes an uncertain) opinion may be formed. If the teeth are very long and discoloured, ragged at the edges, with either the upper or lower projecting beyond the other; the fleshy ridges (called bars) of the upper jaw become smooth and contracted; the tongue lean and wrinkled at the sides; the eyes receding from their former prominence, and a hollow and ghastly indentation above the orb; the knees projecting beyond the shank-bone, and overhanging the fetlock, as well as a knuckling or bending forward of the lower joints behind; little time need be lost in looking for farther proofs; old age is approaching very fast. For age by the teeth, see Colt.
,—a fever of the intermittent kind, which was for many years a matter of doubt and controversy, whether fevers of this description existed in the horse, or merely in the brain of the FARRIER; when, after long investigation, strict attention, and steady observation, by practitioners of the first eminence, the point is at length acceded to; and it is admitted that HORSES are subject to, and attacked with, INTERMITTENTS, bearing an affinity to the quotidians, tertians, and quartans, of the human species.
—is a well known and long established external application in veterinary practice, and is thus prepared.
Take of verdigrease, finely powdered, five ounces; honey, fourteen ounces; the best white wine vinegar, seven ounces; mix and boil them over a gentle fire to the consistence of treacle or honey.
This article, which has so long passed under the denomination of an ointment, and was so called in the London Dispensatory of the College of Physicians, produces, without any additional process, (but merely by standing, and depositing its sediment,) another name for a part of the same preparation in this way: the grosser parts subsiding, constitute a more substantial consistence at the bottom, which is the article termed ÆGYPTIACUM: the fluid or thinner part, floating upon the surface, is the mildest in its effect, and called, by medicinal practitioners, MEL ÆGYPTIACUM. The property of both (one being a degree stronger than the other, and may be used separately, or shaken together, according to the effect required) is to assist in cleansing inveterate and long-standing ulcers; to keep down fungous flesh; and to promote the sloughing off of such foul and unhealthy parts of the surface, as prevent new granulations from arising to constitute the incarnation necessary to a sound and permanent restoration of parts. They are articles of acknowledged utility in the hands of judicious and experienced practitioners; but the furor of folly has sometimes rendered them medicines of mischief with those who have never heard, or do not condescend to recollect, the trite but expressive adage, that "the shoemaker should never go beyond his last." This is the case when the lower classes of farriers, smiths, coachmen, and grooms, attempt to cure the grease, cracked heels, &c. with the articles described, constituting to a certainty, "the remedy worse than the disease."
—is the element in which we breathe; a floating (or fluctuating) fluid, with which we are imperceptibly surrounded, and by whose elastic property we are enabled to exist. A philosophic enquiry into, or definition of, the very air itself, is not to the purpose here; nor, indeed, without a demonstrative and practical apparatus, can its wonderful properties be perfectly understood.
Its various effects upon both the body and the mind of man, as well in sickness as in health, cannot be lost even upon the least sensible and least ruminative observer; who is in the constant enjoyment of those great blessings, air, health, and exercise; for he finds himself affected (and frequently like Pope's rustic hero, who "whistled as he went for want of thought") in different ways, and by every breeze, without knowing why: he meltingly submits one day to the SUN; he shrinks another from the cold: he is depressed, even to melancholy, with the heavy gloom and dense atmosphere to day; and elated, almost beyond the power of expression, by the exhilarating, temperate, clear and lucid sky of to-morrow. If then the spirits are thus not only fairly considered, but fully proved, the thermometer of mental sensations, upon which the air (or rather its change) is found to operate with so much palpable effect; who shall presume to doubt its physical influence upon the human frame, so far as is applicable to the introduction of disease, or the re-establishment of health?
Thus much it has been unavoidably necessary to introduce by way of proof, that the human frame being so affected by the extremes of heat and cold, damps or dryness, such proportional effects (though not probably in directly the same way) may be produced by the same means upon the ANIMAL world, who possessing no power of communication, we cannot derive information but by means of observation upon the original cause and relative effect. As for instance; if the air is too much impregnated with cold, moist, damp particles between the chilling showers of hazy weather, the body (particularly of invalids and valetudinarians) is much more disposed to, and susceptible of, morbidity, than in a more temperate and settled state of the atmosphere. This, proceeding from a collapsion of the porous system, occasions slight indisposition with thousands, who are sensibly affected by lassitude and disquietude, not reaching disease; whilst in others more irritable, it is soon productive of coughs, sore throats, fevers, inflammations of the lungs, and various other disorders. North winds are considered bracing, healthy, and invigorating, to good, sound constitutions; though they are always complained of by those of delicate and tender habits; and there can be no difference of opinion upon the fact, that dry seasons are more conducive to health and spirits than those of a contrary description.
,—a technical term in the MANEGE, which can be but little explained in theory; a perfect knowledge of these terms can only be acquired in the practice of the schools.
;—the taking of horses from the stable to the enjoyment of AIR and EXERCISE.
,—the good old healthy English beverage, brewed from malt, hops and water, alone, with no intoxicating or deleterious articles of adulteration. It is an excellent extemporaneous substitute for gruel, in cases of emergency with horses, where it is required as a vehicle in which to dissolve and administer medicine to prevent delay, as in cholic, strangury, &c.
—is a resinous gum, extracted from the tree whose name it bears, and is brought to us chiefly from the island of Barbadoes. The shops produce two sorts, called Succotrine and Barbadoes; the former of which is the mildest; but the latter most in use, to insure the certainty of operation. It is the principal ingredient in purging balls for horses.
.—Medicines are so called which constitute an effect upon the system, or an alteration in the property of the blood, without any sensible internal or visible external operation. Upon their introduction to the stomach, they become incorporated with its contents; and their medical properties being taken up by the chyle, is conveyed through the lymphatics to the blood-vessels, where it becomes a part of the blood itself, which being fully impregnated with the neutralizing property of the article administered as an alterative, possesses the power of obtunding acrimony, and restraining tendency to disease.
Of all the classes of medicines, none can be more proper or applicable than alteratives, to those who cannot make it convenient to let their horses undergo a regular routine of purgation at the accustomed seasons; as during the administration of alteratives (mercurials excepted) a horse may go through the same occasional work, and diurnal discipline, as if he was under no course of medicine whatever. The alteratives most deservedly esteemed, are antimony, sulphur, nitre, (in small quantities,) cream of tartar, Æthiops mineral, and the antimonial alterative powders of the Author, to be found in the list of his medicines at the conclusion of the Work.
—is an article too well known in the shops, to require farther description, than its medical utility, when, upon any emergency, it may be advantageously brought into use. Reduced to fine powder, and applied as a styptic to the mouths of divided vessels, to stop the effusion of blood, it will be found very efficacious. Dissolved in water, the proportion of one ounce to a pint, it is an infallible cure for the foul white specks, or little watery pustules, so frequently seen in the mouths of horses, (and supposed to arise from internal heat,) the parts being twice or thrice touched with a piece of fine sponge, properly moistened with the solution. Burnt alum, finely powdered, and sprinkled, very lightly, upon the fungous flesh of old or foul wounds, will speedily reduce it, and promote the cure.
—has, in general acceptation, been received as a word strictly synonimous with food; and, like that term, been intended to imply support of any kind, in either a solid or a liquid form. One of the publications with which the press so frequently teems, from the fertile pens of juvenile veterinarians, says, "By ALIMENT, some understand only the nutricious part of the food; but this is a nice and useless distinction. Mr. Taplin uses the word aliment in both senses."
To set this upon better ground, for the comprehension of all matters relative to bodily sustenance, the animal œconomy, its natural secretions and evacuations, it is necessary a criterion should be fixed, by which its intentional meaning should be generally understood. It has been hitherto used in the previous Works of the present Author, not as synonimous with either FOOD or NUTRIMENT, but in a sense directly between both, and for this reason. Food may feed a frame, and prolong existence; though, from its weak, improper, or impoverished quality, it may not possess the essential property requisite to generate blood, create flesh, or promote strength.
The word ALIMENT seems intended to convey an idea somewhat superior to the meaning expressed in the term food, and yet not extend so far as the mind may lead us, in the comprehensive view of the word NUTRIMENT; for, although mouldy hay, or musty straw, may be taken by an animal, in a state of hunger and necessity, to support life, it does not follow that from such food a proper portion of nutriment can be conveyed to the frame. Aliment, therefore, upon every occasion, in which it will be found necessary to introduce it during the course of this Work, must be considered as a term intended to convey an idea of support (in any way whatever) adequate to health, and a state of useful service; in the direct line of mediocrity between the starving existence of a "winter straw yard," near the metropolis, and the nutritious and invigorating system necessary for the invalid recovering from a state of emaciation, or the severity of disease.
,—the pace in a horse, almost peculiar to country people, with poneys and galloways bred upon commons: its ease renders it convenient to women, and pleasing to children; but it is in very little use with any other part of the world.
,—is a complicated excrescence, bearing the appearance of a warty wen. Various have been the modes of cure; to prevent an unnecessary enumeration of which, will be to observe, that they may be safely extirpated, and completely cured, by carefully moistening the surface, once in every three or four days, with the butter of antimony, till they are obliterated; and this will certainly be effected, whatever may be their size or magnitude.
—animals, are those capable of living both upon land and in the water, as the otter, the water rat, the eft, &c.
—is an elegant and commodious structure, either circular or oblong, for the display of feats of horsemanship, poney races, fox hunts, and the exhibition of pantomimes. Mr. Astley's, near Westminster Bridge, has for many years been a favourite resort with the public; but he now finds a powerful rival in the Circus. Mr. Astley's skill in the military art of attack and defence, as well as his superior style of teaching in the MANEGE, have jointly increased his reputation, and encouraged him to transmit to posterity, "A System of Equestrian Education."
,—the study and knowledge of the structure of the human frame in all its component parts; an accurate knowledge of which can only lead the practitioner in surgery to the most distant hope of eminence in his profession, or celebrity in his practice. A proficiency in the anatomical formation of the horse, is every way as necessary to the success of the veterinarian, as the utmost efforts of skill to the surgeon.
—is the art of catching fish by rods and lines, of different construction, with baits, natural and artificial, according to the season of the year, and the fish intended to be caught. As this sport (if it may with consistency be termed one) is not very eagerly sought, and enjoyed but by few, it will not be much enlarged on here; more particularly as those who enter into the minutiæ of enquiry, and spirit of the practice, will find whole volumes appropriate to this particular purpose. A writer of no small celebrity, in alluding to this subject, says, "FISHING is but a dull diversion, and, in my opinion, calculated only to teach patience to a PHILOSOPHER;" and this most likely is the echoed opinion of every fox-hunter in the kingdom; for it should seem that the simple sameness of angling, and the more noble, healthy and exhilarating sports of HUNTING and SHOOTING, were, in a certain degree, heterogeneous, as it has been but very rarely or ever known, that the enthusiastic admirers of one were ever warm or anxious followers of the other.
The kinds of fish which mostly attract the attention of anglers in the principal fresh water rivers and trout streams of the kingdom, (whether for the sport of killing, or the supply of the table,) are salmon, trout, pike, barbel, chub, perch, roach, dace, and gudgeon: CARP and TENCH may also be taken into the aggregate, upon the score of attraction; but instances are few where any great quantity has been taken in this way, as they are, in general, particularly in ponds, motes, and still waters, too shy and cautious to become the hasty victims of human invention.
Upon the subject of ANGLING, it may not be inapplicable to term it a most unfortunate attachment with those classes of society who have no property but their trades, and to whom time alone must be considered a kind of freehold estate: such time lost by a river side, in the frivolous and uncertain pursuit of a paltry plate of fish, instead of being employed in business, has reduced more men to want, and their families to a workhouse, than any species of sport whatever. Racing, hunting, shooting, coursing, and cocking, (destructive as the latter has been,) have never produced so long a list of beggars as the sublime art of angling; in confirmation of which fact, the eye of observation need only turn to any of those small country towns near which there happens to run a fishing stream, when the profitable part of the pleasure may be instantly perceived by the poverty of the inhabitants.