In our own experience, we once witnessed a
blunder about as gross. The present Chancellor, in his first
electioneering contest with the Lowthers, upon some occasion where he was
recriminating upon the other party, and complaining that stratagems, which
_they_ might practise with impunity, were denied to him and his, happened
to point the moral of his complaint, by alleging the old adage, that one
man might steal a horse with more hope of indulgence than another could
look over the hedge. Whereupon, by benefit of the universal mishearing in
the outermost ring of the audience, it became generally reported that Lord
Lowther had once been engaged in an affair of horse stealing; and that he,
Henry Brougham, could (had he pleased) have lodged an information against
him, seeing that he was then looking over the hedge. And this charge
naturally won the more credit, because it was notorious and past denying
that his lordship was a capital horseman, fond of horses, and much
connected with the turf. To this hour, therefore, amongst some worthy
shepherds and others, it is a received article of their creed, and (as
they justly observe in northern pronunciation,) a _sham_ful thing to be
told, that Lord Lowther was once a horse stealer, and that he escaped
_lagging_ by reason of Harry Brougham's pity for his tender years and
hopeful looks.
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