I/O RIDING RECOLLECTIONS. 



Shuttlecock too, immortalized in the famous Billesdon- 

 Coplow poem, when 



" Villiers esteemed it a serious bore, 

 That no longer could Shuttlecock fly as before," 



Vas a clean thorough-bred horse, fast enough to have 

 made a good figure on the race-course, but with a 

 rooted disinclination to jump. 



That king of horsemen, the grandfather of the present 

 Lord Jersey, whom I am proud to remember having 

 seen ride fairly away from a whole Leicestershire field, 

 over a rough country not far from Melton, at seventy- 

 three, told me that this horse, though it turned out even- 

 tually one of his safest and boldest fencers, at the end 

 of six weeks' tuition would not jump the leaping-bar 

 the height of its own knees ! His lordship, however, 

 who was blessed in perfection, with the sweet temper,- as 

 with the personal beauty and gallant bearing of his 

 race, neither hurried nor ill-used it, and the time spent 

 on the. animal's education, though somewhat wearisome, 

 was not thrown away. \ 



Mr. Gilmour's famous Vingt-et-un, the best hunter, 

 he protests, by a great deal that gentleman ever pos- 

 sessed, was quite thorough-bred. Seventeen hands high, 

 but formed all over in perfect proportion to this com- 

 manding frame, it may easily be imagined that the 



