THE RIDER. 197 



rule of the ' Sweet Regent of the Sky,' and has received im- 

 mortality from the hand of Aiken. But then the riders were 

 dashing young dragoons, and that branch of the English service 

 has ever, as we know, been ready to go anywhere and do any- 

 thing — to say nothing of the very stimulating nature of the 

 jumping powder supplied by a Cavalry Mess. But we may 

 fairly assume that, on the whole, we will not say sunlight, as in 

 this desperate climate of ours too narrowly circumscribing our 

 possibilities, but daylight, let us say, will be found most favour- 

 able to feats of equitation. 



But delicious as a gallop across country undeniably is to a 

 good rider on the back of a good horse with, as an enthusiastic 

 writer has expressed it, * the best fellows in the world to the 

 right and left, but never a soul 'twixt yourself and the hounds,' 

 it is no less capable of affording sensations the very reverse of 

 delightful. Everyone remembers Leech's picture of the un- 

 fortunate man going down hill at a slapping pace over ground 

 studded with mole-hills, on a straight-shouldered ewe-necked 

 brute ridden in a single snaffle, one foot out of the stirrup, his 

 hat off, and a dab of mud in his left eye — a combination of 

 miseries said to have originated in the lively imagination of 

 ' Jem ' Mason. The tastes of men are notoriously various 

 and surprising ; but it is difficult to imagine any person in 

 such a situation describing his gallop as delicious. It would 

 be an interesting subject for discussion in one of those * sym- 

 posiums ' which at one time crept into our periodical literature, 

 the relative amount of pity given to the good man mounted 

 on a bad horse, and the bad man on a good horse — the man 

 who could make everything of his chances if he had them, 

 and the man who can make nothing of the chances he 

 has. To be sure, one has often heard of the man who can 

 get to the end of the hardest run on a horse which others 

 have never been able to persuade over a single fence. But 

 in that case we may be pretty sure that the animal was not 

 primarily to blame : the possibilities were there, they only 

 wanted developing. 'I sold you a horse, sir,' said once a 



