STARTING AND SHYING. 137 



lent and dangerous ; with a timid one, he will 

 shortly become master, and then probably in- 

 corrigible. 



STARTING AND SHYING. 



These fallings are both very objectionable ; but 

 they must be carried to great extent ere they be- 

 come, under general circumstances and situations, 

 very dangerous. They are, in effect, more an- 

 noying than replete with danger. A great por- 

 tion of the objection to each depends on the 

 probable frequency of the situations in which they 

 may occur, where danger may arise. For instance ; 

 a horse merely shying is of no great consequence 

 in the country ; for if he swerves out of his straight 

 course there is generally room enough to admit of 

 his doing so without getting into difficulties ; and 

 here the matter ends with his cause of alarm, be 

 it wdiat it may, and we sustain no very unplea- 

 sant sensation from what he does. But if a man 

 is sitting quietly on his horse in a musing mood, 

 called forth by reflection on his lady love, or, in 

 these venal and uncourtly days, more probably 

 by some account unsettled, or by his banker s 

 account by which the gentleman finds himself 

 settled, then the sudden shock of the regular 

 starter o-lyes no erroneous idea of a dislocation of 

 every bone of our anatomy, it jars to the very 



