100 AUTHORS AND PEGMAKERS. 



developed, if developed at all. For I am in about 

 the same situation as a man who has passed the last 

 twenty years of his life cutting pegs for shoemakers. 

 If, during that time, he has not learnt the best mode 

 of making a point to a wooden peg, what a glorious 

 fellow he must be ! I will tell you, Reader, what he 

 must be he must be as stupid a fellow as myself, if 

 I am wrong. As, however, I am sure that all I write 

 is not wrong, I beg to remark that I throw out my 

 ideas just as the husbandman does his chaff from 

 the barn-door, leaving my Readers to pick out the few 

 grains of corn it contains, rejecting the rest or the 

 whole together just as it suits their judgment or fancy. 

 Little as this subject may call for any very erudite 

 polemical discussion, its use or disuse has nevertheless 

 given rise to many differences of opinion among riding 

 men ; and though all perhaps quite competent judges 

 of horses and horsemanship, still prejudice or habit 

 has induced them to form very opposite opinions of 

 its merits some at once anathematising the martin- 

 gal as an adjunct only used by those resolved on 

 self-destruction, as in fact a kind of suicidal instrument, 

 the sure prelude to an inquest of felo de se ; whilst 

 others as strongly advocate its utility. Among those 

 who ride, but are not horsemen which comprise at 

 least ninety-nine out of a hundred of those who do 

 ride I scarcely ever found one who at the bare men- 

 tion of a martingal did not at once exclaim against 

 it ; and though they might not exhibit quite as much 

 horror in their countenance as Priam did of old when 

 he found the ghost wishing to cultivate his acquaint- 

 ance in his bed-room, still throwing a very sufficient 

 degree of terror into their looks at the idea of using 

 one, and a very fair proportion of surprise and con- 



