Introduction. 15 



Queen Elizabeth, says a writer in the Encyclo- 

 paedia Londinensis, " seems to have been the first 

 who set the ladies the more modest fashion of 

 riding sideways. Considerable opposition was, at 

 first, made to it, as inconvenient and dangerous : 

 but, practice, in time, brought it into general use ; 

 particularly when ladies found they could ride 

 a-hunting, take flying leaps, and gallop over cross 

 roads and ploughed fields, without meeting with 

 more accidents than the men : besides, it was not 

 only allowed to be more decorous, but, in many 

 respects, more congenial to the ease and comfort 

 of a female rider." 



Our author is, however, wrong in ascribing 

 the fashion of riding sideways, by women in this 

 country, to Elizabeth ; by whom it could only have 

 been confirmed, or, at the most, revived; — the 

 honor of its introduction being clearly attribu- 

 table to another Queen of England, who lived at 

 a much more early period of our history. 



Ann of Bohemia, consort of Richard the second, 

 is the illustrious personage to whom we allude. 

 She, it was, according to Stow (whom Beckman 

 follows on this point,) that originally showed the 

 women of this country how gracefully and conve- 

 niently they might ride on horseback sideways. 

 Another old historian, enumerating the new fashions 



