RIDING OVER THE SHIRES 209 



Warwickshire sportsman, Mr. Canning, who was so 

 fine a horseman and so undefeated over the stout 

 Warwickshire fences that Nimrod opines he was 

 sent into the world on purpose to show what a horse 

 could do. He was six feet four inches in height and 

 rode seventeen stone ; yet, like all heavy men with 

 judgment, he not only stayed through a run, but 

 hunted in the front rank of riders for a great many 

 years of his life. " When hounds ran," said a con- 

 temporary to Nimrod, who tells the story, " Mr. 

 Canning came out of the crowd like a bee out of the 

 hive, and beat every man that was out." 



Possibly among heavy-weights in our time the 

 present Lord Lonsdale most resembled Mr. Canning 

 in judgment and knowledge of pace. He too is 

 quick to be with hounds when they run. A fine hunts- 

 man, he has the inestimable advantage of knowing 

 what hounds are doing and thus is enabled to save 

 himself by many a turn. Few men have combined 

 knowledge of hunting and skill in horsemanship in a 

 greater degree than the late master of the Quorn. 



But we may return to the famous riders of the 

 past, of whom we are able to write with a freedom 

 that we cannot use of our contemporaries. After 

 all, human nature in the saddle and out of it is much 

 the same at all periods, and the observant man in 

 Leicestershire to-day will see men crossing the country 

 who show the same characteristics in their riding 

 as did those of whom we have spoken. All whom 

 we have named have their prototypes in the present. 

 Similar effects are produced by like causes, and the 

 success which our riders to hounds have to-day is 

 due to the same boldness, judgment, fineness of hand 

 and ease of seat, that made men like the Lord Forester, 

 Lord Wilton, Mr, Maxse, Mr. Little Gilmour, Dick 



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