PLEASURE OF THE FLYING LEAP. 267 



by endeavouring to be fixed in it. In old times, 

 when hunters were trained to leap all upright fences 

 standing, these precautions were still more neces- 

 sary, because the effect of the lash of the hinder- 

 quarters was more sudden and violent, in conse- 

 quence of the horse being so close to his fence that 

 he rose perpendicularly at it, and not with the 

 lengthened sweep of a flying leap. 



Although Virgil, in his third Georgic, speaks of 

 not suffering the brood mare to leap fences, {non 

 saltu super are mam,) we find nothing on this sub- 

 ject in the classics, to induce us to believe that the 

 ancients, although they hunted, were given to ride 

 over fences. Here they sustained a loss ; for we 

 know few more delightful sensations, than that ex- 

 perienced in the act of riding a fine flying leaper 

 over a hidi and broad fence. Nothino- within the 

 power of man approaches so nearly to the act of 

 flying ; and it is astonishing what a great space of 

 ground has been covered at one leap by horses fol- 

 lowing hounds, or, at other times, with first-rate 

 horsemen on their backs, who alone have the power 

 of making them extend themselves to the utmost ; 

 and particularly when the ground, on the rising 

 side, is sound, and somewhat in favour of the horse. 

 In the grand Leicestershire steeple-chase of 1829, 

 a grey horse, called " The King of the Valley,""* 

 the property of Mr. Maxso, and ridden by the 

 justly celebrated Mr. Richard Christian of Melton 

 Mowbray, cleared the previously unheard-of space 

 of eleven yards, or thirty-three feet. Yet, after 

 all, the most extraordinary fact relating to the act 



