2 40 The Book of the Horse. 



the very worst, the most awkward horseman that ever rode in Rotten Row. Bending over 

 his horse's ears, he appeared to have no pleasure in the exercise, and performed his ride 

 as a matter of duty, for the sake of health, and companionship with his several more or less 

 illustrious colleagues. Sir Robert was killed by a shying hack purchased for him by an 

 excellent judge of horses, the late Lord Ossington, at Tattersall's, ridden in defiance of the 

 warning of his old coachman. But the best Judge in the world cannot tell whether a horse 

 shies or not without trying him. The moral to be derived from the lamentable event which 

 deprived this country of a great statesman is that when a man immersed in deep affairs requires 

 a horse for exercise, he should not go to an auction, but place himself in the hands of a first- 

 class dealer. Lord Palmerston wrote to his brother at Naples, after Peel's death, July, 1849: — 

 " Peel was a very bad horseman and an awkward rider. His horse might have been sat by 

 any better equestrian, but he seems somehow to have been entangled in the bridle, and to 

 have forced the horse to step or kneel upon him. Sir Robert Peel died much richer than people 

 expected, and no wonder, for just before he bought the brute that killed him he refused to 

 buy a perfect hack, called the ' Premier,' after a full trial, because he could not believe that 

 any one ever gave ;if400 for a hack." 



The last representative of high-school riding in Rotten Row disappeared with Lord Cardi- 

 gan, "the last of the Cardigans;" and he, although highly accomplished in the mani'ge style 

 was but a pale copy of the Waterloo Marquis, still the talk of the sexagenarians in Dublin, 

 who remember the time of the Anglesea viceroyalty — for no m.an with two sound legs ever 

 made a finer display in the artificial style of horsemanship than the cavalry general who had 

 left one leg at Waterloo, unless it be Mr. Mackenzie Greaves, domiciled in Paris, but an 

 occasional visitor in the London season. 



We do not seem to have any one capable of producing equestrian caricatures after the 

 fashion of those published by Maclean, which gave the politicians of the time of Lord Mel- 

 bourne, Sir Robert Peel, and the Duke of Wellington, so much amusement. The two ages of 

 man were admirably expressed in the Earl of Westmoreland, father of the musical earl, bending 

 over his horse's ears in the old jockey style, trotting a big hunter fourteen miles an hour, as 

 " Old Rapid ;" and Lord Castlereagh, son of the statesman, sitting back galloping his pony 

 with a loose rein, as " Young Rapid." 



" Turn we a different genius to survey 



When Joseph (Hume) homeward plods his weary way; 



Blind to the throng, for appetite he rides, 



And kicks with spurless heel his lumbering hackney's sides."* 



I do not remember ever seeing or hearing of Thomas Babington Macaulay in Rotten Row, 

 although we have his own evidence that he could ride, and that should be an encouragement to 

 the most ungainly figures. The great historian writes in the diary of the "Journey through 

 Ireland, 1848," quoted in Mr. Trevelyan's admirable and delightful life: — "I went twelve miles 

 on horseback. I had not crossed a horse since I rode with Captain Smith, ' a quiet Arab,' 

 through the mango gardens of Arcot in 1834. I was pleased to find that I had good seat ; 

 my guide professed himself quite an admirer of the way in which I trotted and cantered ! 

 His flattery pleased more titan many fine compliments whicli had been paid to my History" 



For many years Thomas Carlyle took exercise on a bay hunter-like horse every evening 



* " The ChaunI of Achilles." 



