LeecJis Running Horse. 65 



cism of the usual artistic work, which the artists 

 should not deem beyond consideration. It is 

 quite possible to make the truthful and the ar- 

 tistic go hand in hand. 



Except, perhaps, in the gallop. This most dis- 

 heartening gait will not be reduced to what we 

 have been taught to like. There is but one of the 

 five " times " of the gallop which suggests even 

 tolerable speed, — the one when all four feet are 

 in the air and gathered well under the horse. At 

 the instant when one of the hind legs is reaching 

 forward to land, there is sometimes a suggestion 

 of great speed and vigor. But the successive 

 stilted strides when the straightened legs in turn 

 assume the body's weight oppress the very soul 

 of the lover of the Racing Plates. It must fain 

 be left to the wisest heads, and perhaps better to 

 time, to bring daylight from this darkness. 



The late John Leech, as far back as the forties, 

 essayed to draw running horses as his very keen 

 eye showed him that they really looked ; but he 

 was laughed out of the idea, and thenceforth 

 stuck to the artist's quadruped, though he had 

 been, in his new departure, much more nearly ap- 

 proaching anatomy than any one was then aware. 

 And thirty years ago, on Epsom Downs, it was 

 revealed to the author, as it has no doubt been to 

 thousands of others, that it is the gathered and 

 not the spread position of the racer which is 



