CAPTAIN JOHN WHITE

Master the Cheshire, 1841-1855
on
"ALICE GREY"

           "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnoma
            Multi, sed omnes . . . . 
            Urgentur . . . . . longa
            Nocte, carent quia vate sacro."
                                          (Hor. Carm. iv, 9.)

    Old Horace was quite right, and so many a hard man has "lived" and passed into darkness before the days of our hero, in Homeric phrase "King of Men" and "Tamer of Horses," and their features and deeds have been lost to posterity, because they lacked the pen of a Warburton and the pencil of a Massey. We are more happy, and so while we feast our eyes on the fine seat of JACK WHITE mounted on his famous and shapely mare, let us listen to our Poet's friend, "Farmer Dobbin," describing a meet of the Cheshire, where among many other celebrities he says, in his own vernacular tongue -
    "I seed that great commander in the saddle, Captain Whoit,
     An the pack as thrung'd abut him was indeed a gradely soight;
     The dugs look'd foin as satin, an himsel look'd hard as nails,
     An he giv the swells a caution not to roid upo' their tails.
     Says he, 'Young men o' Monchester and Livverpoo, cum near,
     Oiv just a word, a warning ward, to whisper in your ear
     When, starting from the cuvver soid, ye see bawd Reynard Burst,
     We canna 'ave no 'unting if the gemmen go it first.'"
   
Many a time since then has the same sermon been preached to deaf ears, and in these latter days those pretty little deaf ears have gleamed beneath the brim of a glossy feminine hat . . . - but here in terror I let fall my pen!