ON THE VALUE OF BOOKS ON RIDING. I 7 



teach a horse any movement for which the animal 

 was suited by the rules of any good modern work. 



The art of horsemanship has grown slowly. A 

 man would never acquire any great skill in it by 

 his unaided efforts. But when he has learned all 

 that has been collected and handed down by those 

 who have written upon the subject, he may dis- 

 cover new and valuable effects of the bit and of 

 the spur. If it be necessary to prove that books 

 on riding have advanced the art, let us look at the 

 strides that have been made in it since the inven- 

 tion of printing. Let us compare the work of 

 Grisone, published in 1552, with that of Xenophon, 

 and then compare one of the best modern works 

 with that of the Italian. We shall see that Grisone's 

 method is little, if any, in advance of the work 

 written two thousand years before ; it is rough, 

 crude, severe, and difficult for horse and man. 

 Then if we trace the history of the art through 

 Pluvinel, Newcastle, De la Gueriniere, and Baucher, 

 we shall find in the almost perfect methods now in 

 use the great advance that has been made in the 

 past three hundred years, — an advance that is 

 certainly due in a great measure to the printing of 

 books upon the subject. Grisone's was the first 

 work that appeared in type. In a few years there 

 were works published in nearly every European 

 2 



