THE NATURAL EIDER. 335 



tical rider, but not a scientific one. The one taught chiefly by 

 precept may, nay will, become more or less scientific ; but will 

 never get the peifectly easy and natural seat or look of him, 

 who began riding at an early age. He will never look as if a 

 seat on horseback and on a chair was equally natural to him ; 

 he will always appear artificial. I do not mean to say he may 

 not be made to ride well, possibly boldly ; and, if well mounted, 

 may in two or three seasons get to ride across country, as well 

 as many, perhaps most, out. Still he will never shake off the 

 certain artistical manner of doing things, inseparable from being 

 first taught, and then practising, instead of the learning and 

 practising having gone hand in hand from boyhood or child- 

 hood. 



I have, jDerhaps, used the term artistically, so as to imply 

 that doing a thing thus, that is, like an artist, is synonymous to 

 describing it as being done well. I grant it is so ; but the dif- 

 ferent modes of doing it is great; for instance, brilliant jockeys 

 and race-riders take hold of their reins artistically ; so do good 

 hunting-riders and steeplechasers ; that is, they do so like men 

 accustomed to do it ; but they do not do so like a dragoon. He 

 is taught but one way of taking up his bridle rein and one way 

 of mounting his horse ; the others take their reins up in a seem- 

 ingly careless way, but still in a proper one. The troop horse 

 is trained to stand still till mounted, and has a hint to move on ; 

 80 the same precise way of mounting can always be practised. 

 But the race or steeplechase horses, and hunters, are not thus 

 obedient ; some from vice will bite or kick, if they get a chance, 

 or perhaps plunge before or after mounting, or sometimes both ; 

 others from excitement fidget about and away from the rider, 

 before he gets his foot in the stirrup ; others, the moment he has 

 done so ; therefore such men are obliged to get on their horses 

 as circumstances permit, — that is, as they can. Still they do so 

 like artists. It would not quite have done for a man to stand 

 twisting his fingers in a high-spirited, half-vicious thorough- 

 bred's mane, and then get on, or attempt to get on him in ac- 

 cordance with prescribed riding-school practice ; he would have 

 been half eaten before he got into his saddle. 



The school-taught pupil gets up, we will say, quite properly, 

 and rides the same ; that is, if all the horses he has to mount 



