RIDING TO HOUNDS :}(;r> 



he ancients hunted their hounds, and got across a country after 

 them, yet we are satisfied that they did both. We are also satisfied 

 that, amongst those who wrote upon domestic economy, there were 

 many good judges of hounds and horses, particularly of the latter. 

 Instead of taking up a Scotch novel, which I could not read, or a 

 fashionable canto which I could not understand, it has been my 

 practice, when wiling away a tedious hour, to look in the books 

 which I read in my youth. I have been forcibly struck with some 

 passages that I have met with in them relating to the horse, which 

 so exactly accord with my own ideas of what a hunter should he, 

 that I shall take leave to mention them. 



Pliny has the following remarkable sentence: — "Equi sine f ranis, 

 deformis ipse cursus, rigida cervice, et extento capite, currentium," 

 which we may safely translate thus : horses that go with a stiff 

 neck, and their noses poked out, and not pulling together in their 

 stride, are unfit to carry a gentleman. How to choose a colt for a 

 hunter, we cannot improve upon Virgil's advice. Let him be well 

 bred, says he, and tread well on his pasterns. Of his courage — so 

 essential to a first-rate hunter — he says, he should be the first to 

 lead the way, to dash through the stream, and to trust himself on 

 the unknown bridge. The "primus et ire viam," is all that we 

 could wish or ask for. Varro says we should choose one that is the 

 first to plunge into a stream without waiting for his companions ; 

 and Columella, one which is afraid of nothing ; who goes faster than 

 the rest, and particularly, " si fossam sine cuuctationc transilit." 

 How exactly a ])rook jumper ! 



The form of a horse seems to have lieen well understood by these 

 ancient writers. Virgil and Horace speak of the " ardua cervix," 

 by which, no doubt, they meant to imply carrying the head in a 

 good place. They also speak of the neat head, and Varro recom- 

 mends caput " non mafpiuin," but not a small head, which is certainly 

 a defect. 



The necessary points to carry weight were not overlooked. The 

 broad back and the double chine are mentioned by several of them, 

 as well as the wide chest ; but Virgil's " luxuriatque toris, animosum 

 pectus," is exactly expressive of the power and spirit of a fine 

 hunter. The "tori" I take to be the brawny swelhngs of the 



