TEACHING TO RIDE. 333 



way, and horse, each in succession, as a boy, and allowing him 

 to tumble about till he learns to stick on, in which case practice 

 will teach him, certainly, a firm seat and probably good hands ; 

 but, farther than this, by being accustomed, first to suffer from, 

 and afterward to be quite aware of, the various tricks and habits 

 of horses, he will learn to be aware of the symptoms preluding 

 their being brought into practice, and eventually become com- 

 petent to counteract them. 



The next mode is, supposing a person to have arrived at 

 manhood without crossing a horse, to place him under a proper 

 instructor, who will certainly save him many a fall, by putting 

 him on a docile animal, and, step by step, leading the pupil on 

 to horsemanship. 



It may be objected, that the last mode would only teach the 

 riding of a trained and quiet horse, and I allow the full force 

 of this objection; and if the pupil expressed a wish of simply 

 being taught to ride well enough to navigate his steed up and 

 down a park ride, as some friend probably learns to manage a 

 boat on a canal, the one will probably never be able to encoun- 

 ter a severe day's work on the back of a difficult horse, or the 

 other a chopping sea in any part of the Bay of Biscay. But 

 if the learner of equestrianism says — " Make me a horseman," 

 seat and hands can certainly be learned in a riding-school quite 

 as well as in any situation I know of — no bad foundation — if 

 obtained — to becoming a horseman ; and there are means and 

 appliances in a riding-school to teach something more than the 

 mere walking, trotting, and cantering a kind of automaton horse 

 round its enclosure. "" 



As a boy, I believe I may say, I could ride any thing, and 

 cared little for pace, fence, or country, or whether I could hold 

 my horse or not ; but when I was put on the back of a very 

 highly-dressed manege horse, and was directed what to do with 

 rein and heel, and when the voice and whip of the professor in- 

 duced the horse to rear, put his two fore feet on the wall, and in 

 that position using hind and fore feet perpetrate a kind of side- 

 long canter half way down the school, I was not a little aston- 

 ished, and found sitting leaps over hurdles, gates, and fences 

 much more easy than balancing my body in this rampant crab- 

 like pace, if pace it could be called. 



