become a
contributor, and his first article, on "Fox-Hunting in Leicestershire,"
appeared in 1822. This was followed by accounts of other hunting tours,
which proved so popular that the circulation of the magazine was soon
trebled. Apperley is said to have received L20 a page for his work,--the
highest price ever paid to a journalist at that time,--but apparently
this splendid remuneration had to cover his working expenses, which
included a stud of hunters. "Nimrod" soon became a celebrity in the
sporting world, and masters of hounds trembled at his nod. The news of
his arrival in a country set every member of the local hunt in a
flutter; the best horses were brought out, and the best covers drawn, in
the hope of a favourable notice from the great man.

[Illustration: A NEW HUNTER--TALLYHO! TALLYHO!]

In 1830 the _Sporting Magazine_ came to grief, in consequence of the
death of the editor, and Apperley, who had borrowed large sums of
Pittman, was obliged to take refuge from his creditors at Calais, where
he spent the next twelve years. Here, a year later, arrived John Mytton,
also a fugitive, having run through a splendid property, and ruined a
magnificent constitution by drink, before he was thirty-five. Apperley
seems to have done his best for his old friend and comrade, who, having
exchanged old port--of which his daily allowance had been from four to
six bottles a day--for brandy, was rapidly drinking himself to death.
Mytton, who seems to have been practically a madman in his last years,
returned to London in 1833, and was promptly thrown into the King's
Bench, where he died of delirium tremens in the following year.

Apperley occupied himself during his exile in writing sporting memoirs
and reminiscences, and contributing to Ackermann's _New Sporting
Magazine_. In 1835 he was invited by Lockhart to write three articles on
Hunting, Racing, and Coaching for the _Quarterly Review_, and these,
which represent some of his best work, were republished under the title
of _The Chase, the Turf, and the Road_, with coloured etchings by Henry
Alken. Lockhart was so much impressed by the powers of his new
contributor, that he told John Murray, "I have found a man who can hunt
like Hugo Meynell and write like Walter Scott,"--a criticism that did
more credit to his sporting than his literary acumen, though Apperley's
style is greatly superior to that of Pierce Egan and other of his
sporting contemporaries. In 1837 he publishe