54 



THE HORSE. 



days thrt^e times in the week ; but, after a thorouglily hard day, and evi. 

 dent distress, three or four days' rest should be allowed. They who are 

 merciful to their horses, allow about thirty days' work in the course of 

 the season ; with gentle exercise on each of the intermediate days, and 

 particularly a sweat on the day before hunting. There is an account, 

 however, of one horse who followed the fox-hounds seventy-five times in 

 one season. This feat has never been exceeded. 



We recollect to have seen the last Duke of Richmond but one, although 

 an old man, and when he had the gout in his hands so severely that he 

 was obliged to be lifted on horseback, and both arms being passed through 

 the reins, were crossed on his breast, galloping down the steepest part 

 of Bow-hill, in the neighbourhood of Goodwood, almost as abrupt as the 

 ridge of an ordinary house, and cheering on the hounds with all the ardour 

 of a youth.* 



The horse fully shares in the enthusiasm of his rider. It is beautiful to 

 watch the old hunter, who, after many a winters' hard work, is turned into 

 the park to enjoy himself for life. His attitude and his countenance when, 

 perchance, he hears the distant cry of the dogs, are a study. If he can, 

 he will break his fence, and, over hedge, and lane, and brook, follow the 

 chase, and come in first at the death. 



A horse that had, a short time before, been severely fired on three legs, 

 and was placed in a loose box, with the door, four feet high, closed, and an 

 aperture over it a little more than three feet square, and standing himself 

 nearly sixteen hands, and master of fifteen stone, hearing the cheering of 

 the huntsmen and the cry of the dogs at no great distance, sprung through 

 the aperture without leaving a single mark on the bottom, the top or liie 

 sides. 



Then, if the horse be thus ready to exert himself for our pleasure — and 

 pleasure alone is here the object — it is indefensible and brutal to urge him 



* Sir John Malcolm (in his sketches of Persia) gives an amusing account of the im- 

 pression which a fox-hunt in the English style made on an Arab : 



"I was entertained by listening to an Arab peasant, who, with animated gestures, was 

 narrating to a group of his countrymen all he had seen of this noble hunt. ' There came 

 the fox,' said he, pointing with a crooked stick to a clump of date trees, ' there he came 

 at a great rate. I hallooed, but nobody heard me, and I thought he must get away; but 

 when he got quite out of sight, up came a large spotted dog, and then another and anotlier. 

 They all had their noses to the ground, and gave tongue — whow, whow, whow — so loud, I 

 was frightened. Away went these devils, who soon found the poor animal. After them 

 galloped the Foringecs (a corruption of Prank, the name given to an European over -.ill 

 Asia,) shouting and trying to make a noise louder than the dogs. No wonder they killed 

 the fox among them.' " 



The Treasurer, Burleigh, the sage councillor of Q.ueen Elizabeth, could not enter into 

 the pleasures of the chase. Old Andrew Fuller relates a quaint story of him : 



"When some noblemen had gotten William Cecill Lord Burleigh to ride with them a 

 hunting, and the sport began to be cold, ' What call you this?' said the treasurer. ' On ' 

 now the dogs are at fault,' was the reply. ' Y^ea,' quoth tlie treasurer, 'take me again in 

 such a fault, and I'll give you leave to punish me.' " 



In former times it was the fashion for women to hunt almost as often and as keenly as 

 the men. Q,ueen Elizabeth was extremely fond vi the chase. Rowland Whyte, in a 

 letter to Sir Robert Sidney, says : " Her majesty is well, and excellently disposed to hurt- 

 ing; for every second day she is on horseback, and continues the sport long." 



This custom soon afterwards began to decline, and the jokes and sarcasms of the witty 

 court of Charles II. contributed to discountenance it. 



It is a curious circumstance, that the first work on hunting that proceeded from the 

 press, was from the pen of a female, Juliana Barnes, or Berners, the sister of Lord .BerneTg, 

 aud prioress of the nunnery of Sopewell, about the year I4ol. 



