234 HORSEMANSHIP. 



most essential use is confined to Great Britain 

 alone, and that is, in enabling the horseman to rise 

 in his saddle to meet the action of the horse in his 

 trot, by which means a pace, otherwise most dis- 

 agreeable and fatiguing, is rendered nearly the 

 pleasantest of any. So long as the demi-pique 

 saddle was in use, in which the horseman was so 

 deep-seated, and trussed up as to make falling al- 

 most impossible ; and he rode, as Sir Walter Scott 

 made King James to ride, " a horse keeping his 

 haunches under him, and seldom, even on the most 

 animating occasions of the chase, stretching for- 

 ward beyond the managed pace of the academy ;'" 

 pressure on the stirrup might have been dispensed 

 with, but with the saddles of the present day, and 

 the more natural action of the horse, we consider it 

 quite indispensable. It is indeed to the disuse of 

 this practice in France, and other parts of the 

 Continent, where rising in the stirrups is seldom 

 resorted to even on the hardest trotting horses, 

 that is to be attributed the almost rare occurrence 

 of persons riding any distance, or at a quick rate, 

 for pleasure. To this peculiar system in our horse- 

 manship also are we indebted for our rapid style 

 of posting, as without it post-boys could not endure 

 the fatigue the action of a horse creates, especially 

 in hot weather, over a fifteen miles' stage, at the 

 rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, without a mo- 

 ment's intermission ; whereas, by means of it, he 

 performs that task with comparative ease and com- 

 fort. The objection to it on the part of foreigners 

 lies in the fancied inelegance, if not indecency, of 



