lo " Faw^nr 



criticism may be said to have inspired these 

 pages, otherwise perhaps without a suitable motif, 

 an explanation appears to be called for, lest by 

 some other youthful equestrian critics the physi- 

 cian be advised to heal himself. 



The exclusive use of the English hunting-rig 

 and crop for all kinds and conditions of men at 

 all times and in all places is well understood by 

 old horsemen to be but a matter of fashion which 

 time may displace in favor of some other novelty. 

 For their proper purpose they are undeniably the 

 best. But to the newly fledged equestrian who 

 makes them his shibboleth, and who discards as 

 " bad form " any variation upon the road from 

 what is eminently in place after hounds, the au- 

 thor, with an admiration for the excellencies of 

 the English seat derived from half a dozen years' 

 residence in the Old Country and many a sharp 

 run in the flying-counties, and with the conscious- 

 ness that, if tried in the balance of to-day's An- 

 glomania, his own seat, as shown in some of the 

 illustrations, may chance to be found wanting, de- 

 sires to explain that, during the Civil War, out- 

 rageous fortune, among other slings and arrows, 

 sent him to the rear with the loss of a leg; but 

 that far from giving up a habit thus become all 

 the more essential because he could no longer 

 safely sit a flat saddle, he concluded to supple- 

 ment his lack of grip (as the Marquis of Angle- 



