250 "FOOLS AND THEIR MONEY," ETC. 



I said I would allude to the horse taken out of the 

 team : he was a fair goer, but had not harness-action. 

 My friend found this out in half an hour, and imme- 

 diately drafted him : he rode him, put him into the 

 hunters' stable, and he came out first-rate. Now, 

 here was a young six-year-old horse being sacrificed, 

 and spoiling his companions, from being put into his 

 wrong place. So much for judgment, or rather the 

 want of it ! Judgment in horses certainly is not 

 possessed by one man in a hundred who keeps and 

 uses them, and yet scarcely one man in that hundred 

 will allow or believe he does not possess it. I doubt 

 not many a young city gentleman, who daily drives 

 his Stanhope from Finsbury Square to his little secret 

 establishment in the New Road, fancies he could drive 

 a Dutchman or any other horse in a match as well as 

 Woodriffe, and that he could make him do it in the 

 same time ; though half of these gentlemen want a 

 hand for each rein, and a third for their whip, and 

 then they would only be in the way of each other. 

 Let the generality of persons see a horse or horses go 

 well across a country or in harness, they are very 

 properly struck with admiration of their powers ; but 

 they seldom give half the credit they deserve to those 

 who drive or ride them, whereas a much greater share 

 of the merit of the performance belongs to them than 

 people are apt to imagine ; yet it would be difficult to 

 persuade them that the same horses would not do the 

 same thing in their hands. I was fool enough once 

 to buy a reed of a fellow in the street, who certainly 

 imitated all sorts of birds most beautifully. I thought 

 what a deep hand I was when I insisted on having 

 the identical one he was using, and gave an additional 



