122 About Breeches and Boots. 



moment the clock strikes twelve on Sunday night. The 

 bishop of bishops on horseback was the late Bishop Wilber- 

 force; he seemed thoroughly happy, and rode as if he 

 enjoyed it ; and his horse enjoyed it, too ; and he was, more- 

 over, as history says, a rare good judge of a horse. With due 

 deference to the late Lord Houghton, who, speaking of the 

 bishop in the "Fortnightly Review " of last March, says : 

 '' He was notoriously fond of riding, and had the reputation 

 of being a good horseman, which was not true, for he rode 

 very loosely," &c., I maintain that the bishop was a very good 

 rider, though unfortunately he was killed by his horse 

 stumbling, as were the Marquis of Waterford and poor 

 Whyte-Melville, both fine horsemen. True it is that he 

 had a forward seat on a park cob on the stones, but Lord 

 Houghton never saw him sit a spirited horse in the open. 

 I should be sorry to depend on Lord Houghton's opinion on 

 horses or riders, or even on art or literature, though he 

 fancies himself M^cenas of all England, and is always more 

 than anxious to play the part in public. I once saw an 

 archbishop in knickerbockers, and what is more he photo- 

 graphed me in profile with a short pipe in my mouth, 

 standing on a rock in the attitude of " throwing a fly." It 

 was in a Highland glen by the side of a splendid trout 

 stream, which I pine after in my dreams. The keeper said 

 the archSd^shop wanted some figures on the rock, and 

 he posed us and sat down himself; so we all went down to 

 fame. 



In a water-colour sketch which is before me now, 

 '' swells," male and female, of the end of the last and 

 beginning of this century are introduced. The St. James's 

 Street dandy, who is arm-in-arm with a guardsman attired 

 in pantaloons and black gaiters similar in size to a High- 

 lander's gaiter of to-day, sports a pair of boots with deep tops, 

 from a little below the knee to the ankle, showing an in- 



