BANKS AND DITCHES i8i 



depended during the day upon a flask of tincture of rhubarb, 

 the only refreshment he carried. 



But passing from the chivalry and stomachs of our 

 forbears, it may here be observed vi^ithout disrespect to 

 their memory that a note of the many more clement and 

 intelligent conceptions of manners and taste, which have 

 fruitfully multiplied during the inspiring reign of Queen 

 Victoria, is the changed standard of riding to hounds. Little 

 or no credit is now awarded to a Mr. Stanhope. A man 

 who overfaces a generous horse and is always taking heavy 

 falls, is looked upon as a fool — all but as a knave. That 

 So-and-so is always ' on the floor ' is as much as saying that 

 So-and-so is a poor performer. He is spoken of in accents 

 of pity, not of admiration ; and you are given to understand 

 that though his heart may be in the right place, his hands 

 and another part of his person are elsewhere. 



Every now and then, of course, some great necessity 

 arises, and a gallant pair pound the field. A fall is inevitable, 

 but fine shoulders, fine hands, and a fine seat bring the 

 staunch partners out of the crisis handsomely. I have seen 

 both the late Mr. Chapman and Mr. Corbett Holland fall in 

 a way which was a lesson in the arts of horsemanship. But 

 to ride your horse fairly, to get to the end of many runs with 

 few falls, and to finish a season with a soundish stud, is now 

 the criterion of artistic riding to hounds, not the bravo-like 

 adventures of the Mytton type, which entitled the foxhunter 

 to a place in the sporting anthologies of sixty years ago. 



And now as to the sort of horse to ride with the Queen's 

 Hounds. ' Whoever rides Eadical should be as quiet as a 

 mouse, as bold as a lion, and as strong as a horse.' So said 

 Mr. Assheton Smith, which is the same thing as saying 

 that Radical was not everybody's horse. At the same time 

 horses of his class, for he was one of the best-bred hunters 

 which ever went over Leicestershire, are the best anywhere 



