242 METHOD OF HORSEMANSHIP. 



The difficulties of horsemanship have 

 long been the same ; but formerly constant 

 practice, if not taste, kept it up. This 

 stimulant exists no longer. Fifty years ago, 

 every man of rank was expected to be able 

 to handle a horse with skill, and break one 

 if necessary. This study was an indispens 

 able part of the education of young people 

 of family ; and as it obliged them to devote 

 two or three years to the rough exercises of 

 the manage, in the end, they all became 

 horsemen some by taste, the rest by habit. 

 These habits once acquired were preserved 

 throughout life ; they then felt the necessity 

 of possessing good horses, and being men of 

 fortune spared nothing in getting them. 

 The sale of fine horses thus became easy; 

 . all gained by it, the breeder as well as the 

 horse. It is not so now : the aristocracy 

 of fortune, succeeding to that of birth, is 

 very willing to possess the advantages of 



