THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 57 



account, once saw this man's skill tried on a horse 

 which could never before be brought to stand still for 

 a smith to shoe him. " The day after Sullivan*s half 

 hour's lecture," he says, " I went, not without some 

 incredulity, to the smith's shop, with many other 

 curious spectators, where we were witnesses of the 

 complete success of his art. This, too, had been a 

 troop horse, and it was supposed, not without reason, 

 that after regimental discipline had failed, no other 

 would be found availing. I observed that the animal 

 appeared terrified whenever Sullivan either spoke to 

 or looked at him : how that extraordinary ascendancy 

 could have been obtained it is difficult to conjecture^ 

 " In common cases this mysterious preparation was 

 unnecessary. He seemed to possess an instinctive 

 power of inspiring awe, the result, perhaps, of natural 

 intrepidity, in which, I believe, a great part of his 

 art consisted : though the circumstance of the iete-a- 

 tete shows that, on particular occasions, something 

 more must have been added to it. A faculty like 

 this would in some hands have made a fortune, and I 

 understand that great offers were made to him for the 

 exercise of his art abroad. But hunting was his 

 passion : he lived at home in the style most agreeable 

 to his disposition, and nothing could induce him to 

 quit Duhallow and the fox- hounds." 



