242 METHOD OF HORSEMANSHIP. 



The difficulties of horsemanship have 

 long been the same ; but formerly constant 

 practice, if not taste, kept it up. This 

 stimulant exists no longer. Fifty years ago, 

 every man of rank was expected to be able 

 to handle a horse with skill, and break one 

 if necessary. This study was an indispens- 

 able part of the education of young people 

 of family ; and as it obliged them to devote 

 two or three years to the rough exercises of 

 the manege, in the end, they all became 

 horsemen — some by taste, the rest by habit. 

 These habits once acquired were preserved 

 throughout life ; they then felt the necessity 

 of possessing good horses, and being men of 

 fortune spared nothing in getting them. 

 The sale of fine horses thus became easy; 

 all gained by it, the breeder as well as the 

 horse. It is not so now : the aristocracy 

 of fortune, succeeding to that of birth, is 

 very willing to possess the advantages of 



