THE CRITICS OF 177 



I wonder how many men understand the science ? I 

 have seen many men attempt to " lift " their horses, and 

 the result has generally ended in dire disaster. My 

 own experience is that a horse knows his business 

 better than his rider ; but then there is a difference 

 between riding " made " hunters and the raw 'uns on 

 which Dick Christian held his own in the first flight 

 with the Quorn. Yet he was never a "thrusting 

 scoundrel." He said to " The Druid " : " It's not the 

 big fences I'm afraid of. I never go near 'em, but it's 

 the little 'uns I'm afraid of." But Dick was the last 

 man in the world to turn his horse's head from a fence 

 when he had once put him at it. Writing about the 

 accomplishments of the hunting-field, "The Druid," in 

 " Silk and Scarlet," pays this tribute to Dick Christian ; 

 "A gentleman, who practically explains all the above 

 accomplishments to the great edification of young 

 horses and the no less astonishment of weak minds." 



It is much to be regretted that Dick Christian never 

 took to writing, for he could have given us more 

 information about hunters than any man who has ever 

 put pen to paper. But the boy who played truant 

 from the school, where they taught the three R.s, in 

 order to attend the school where they taught horse- 

 manship, was not likely to devote his energies to litera- 

 ture in later life. I am informed that he had a supreme 

 contempt for hunting journalism, though he had a 

 warm affection for Mr. Dixon, alias " The Druid," to 

 whom he gave some particulars of his life, when, in his 

 seventy-eighth year, he was residing at Norton by 

 Bessingborough. These particulars were publi^^hed in 



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