136 RIDING RECOLLECTIONS. 



never got into a saddle. Weighing nineteen stone, I 

 have seen him in a burst across Leicestershire, go for 

 twenty minutes with the best of the light-weights, occa- 

 sionally relieving his horse by throwing himself off, 

 leaping a fence alongside of it, and vaulting on again, 

 without checking the animal sufficiently to break its 

 stride. 



The lamented Lord Mayo too, whose tall stalwart 

 frame was in keeping with those intellectual powers that 

 India still recalls in melancholy pride, was accustomed, 

 on occasion, thus to surmount an obstacle, no less suc- 

 cessfully among the bullfinches of Northamptonshire 

 than the banks and ditches of Kildare. Perhaps the 

 best rider of his family, and it is a bold assertion, for 

 when five or six of the brothers are out hunting, there 

 will always be that number of tall heavy men, answering 

 to the name of Bourke in the same field with the hounds, 

 Lord Mayo, or rather Lord Naas (for the best of his 

 sporting career closed with his succession to the earldom), 

 was no less distinguished for his daring horsemanship, 

 thai? his tact in managing a country, and his skill in 

 hunting a pack of hounds. That he showed less fore- 

 thought in risking a valuable life than in conducting the 

 government of an empire, we must attribute to his 

 personal courage and keen delight in the chase, but that 



