HISTORY OF HORSE-RACING. 33 



But if Scotland has deteriorated in the matter of horse- 

 breeding, Ireland would appear to have come on in equal ratio, 

 or her climate must have considerably improved since the year 

 1792, when our old authority wrote thus : 



The nobility and persons of fortune (in Ireland) have stallions 

 of great reputation belonging to them, but prefer breeding for the 

 turf to other purposes ; for which, perhaps, their own country is 

 not so well adapted, from the moisture of the atmosphere occa- 

 sioned by excessive rain and other causes, which hinder it from 

 imparting that elastic force and clearness of wind so necessary for 

 the exertion and continuation of extraordinary speed, and which 

 are solely the gifts of a dry soil and an air more refined and 

 pure. 



This country, nevertheless, is capable of producing fine and 

 noble horses, if aided by care and other requisites which its in- 

 habitants are very able to bestow. 



Now the foregoing paragraphs are in almost exact contra- 

 diction to our modern ideas about Irish-bred horses. We do 

 not consider them deficient in ' elastic force or clearness of 

 wind,' &c., and we do not regard the inhabitants as a rule 

 ' very able (or willing) to bestow care and other requisites ' on 

 their equine produce. 



Horsemanship may possibly be the one item in which every 

 Englishman does not regard himself as necessarily superior to 

 his ancestors ; he may at any rate think that, if not pejor avis, 

 he is only the worthy descendant of an immemorial line of 

 Centaurs. Such humble individual it may comfort or astonish 

 to hear that our friend of the ' Sporting Magazine ' deems that 

 the Duke of Newcastle's treatise was the first ray of light shed 

 on the art of riding in England, and that it was only in the 

 reign of George III. that the science began to be really un- 

 derstood or appreciated. Poor Whyte Melville ! and you de- 

 scribed Humphrey Bosville as a horseman equal to yourself. 



As a slight clue to the means and facilities for horse- 

 breeding at the time of which we have been writing we append 

 a list of stallions advertised to cover in 1794, with their prices : 



D 



