204 HUNTING. 



mended ; but the other, never. In nearly all the old hunting 

 pictures, the riders will be seen not only taking their fences 

 with their whip-hands high in air, but going at them in the same 

 attitude, and no matter what the description of fence, always at 

 the same headlong pace. Like the horsemen in Macaulay's 

 poem who carried inland the news of the coming of the Spanish 

 Armada, these fiery riders are seen on the canvases of Ferneley 

 and Alken charging over the Leicestershire pastures ' with loose 

 rein and bloody spur,' as though each one had in his pocket 

 any number of spare necks both for himself and his horse. It 

 adds to the picturesqueness of the scene, no doubt, it may also 

 make the unskilful ' wonder with a foolish face of praise ; ' but 

 it will certainly make the ' judicious grieve.' And if this were 

 really the style of riding popular among those mighty men of 

 old, the tales of their prowess must certainly lose a little of their 

 currency. Remembering, however, Assheton Smith's saying, 

 ' Whenever you see a man going a hundred miles an hour at his 

 fences, depend upon it that man funks,' one may fairly suppose 

 that the fault lay with the painters and not with their subjects. 

 To write of hands and. judgment is indeed a difficult matter. 

 One may write of them, of course, for ever and ever, but how 

 little ' forwarder ' will mere writing get our young friend ! When 

 Izaak Walton sat down to pen his ' Pleasant Curiosity of Fish 

 and Fishing,' he first took care, like the wise man he was, to 

 guard himself about with the following precaution or * letter of 

 advice ' to his readers : ' Now for the Art of catching fish ; that 

 is to say, how to make the man that was none to be an Angler 

 by a book, he that undertakes it shall undertake a harder task 

 than Mr. Hales, a most valiant and excellent fencer, who in a 

 printed book called a " Private School of Defence " undertook 

 to teach that art or science, and was laughed at for his labour ; 

 not but that many useful things might be learned by that book, 

 but he was laughed at because that Art was not to be taught by 

 words, but practice ; and so must Angling.' And so, with 

 even more confidence may we say, must Riding. Of all the 

 many and intricate branches of the sport of hunting, there is 



