48 RIDING 



practically impossible to manage him, and thus to exact the 

 'good comely trot ' of which he was capable. The Irish hobbie 

 had much to recommend him. Except for a tendencyto.be 

 'slender and pin-buttocked,' he was indifferently well-shaped, 

 and, when not skittish and fearful for lack of due training, nimble r 

 agile, pleasant, and apt to be taught. 



As for the teaching of these days, the methods were gene- 

 rally severe and not seldom exceedingly quaint. Grison, one 

 of the great authorities whom Blundevill quotes, believed that 

 a man's planet influenced his horsemanship, and hoped that all 

 students might have ' the helpe of a good constellation, inclining 

 you to follow continuallie with a fervent zeele the schoole of 

 Mars ; ' but besides this, three things were stated to be necessary 

 ' first, to know how and when to help your horse ; secondlie, 

 how and when to correct him ; thirdlie, how and when to 

 cherish him and make much of him ; ' and the writer goes on 

 to a truth which is perhaps insufficiently appreciated at the 

 present day, to the effect that ' the voice is that which any horse 

 feareth most, and is needful in all disorders.' How the voice 

 was to be used for correcting, thrashing, or to ' coax the horse 

 for doing well' is set forth at length, and reads very oddly. 

 The main directions are too long to transcribe here. There 

 is a special chapter, 'Of the Rod,' showing when the 'rod 

 or cudgell ' should be used ; and a short chapter, ' Of the 

 Stirrup,' which goes to show that, in spite of the author's criti- 

 cism on native horsemanship, the average rider was perfectly 

 at home in the saddle, for it is assumed that ' the correction 

 or help of the stirrup is seldom used.' 'Of the Spur' follows, 

 and it is strange at the close of the nineteenth century to find 

 the old writer of the sixteenth describing how ' first you shall 

 understand that in olde time men were so ignorant, as they 

 would never spur their horses until they were not onlie staid 

 of head, but also perfect in all such orders as they used in 

 those daies ; so that, though their horses were five or seven 

 years old, yet could no man assure himself of their goodness. 

 For most commonlie, when they came afterward to be spurred, 



