SEAT 



the school, and sit firm over a leaping-bar, with 

 his feet swinging loose, and his hands in his 

 pockets, he will have become a better horseman 

 than ninety-nine out of every hundred who go out 

 hunting. Henceforward you may trust him to 

 take care of himself, and swim alone. 



In every art it is well to begin from the very 

 first with the best method ; and I would instil 

 into a pupil, even of the tenderest years, that 

 although his legs, and especially his knees, are to 

 be applied firmly to his pony's sides, as affording 

 a security against tumbling off, it isfrojn the loins 

 that he must really ride, when all is said and 

 done. 



I daresay most of us can remember the 

 mechanical horse exhibited in Piccadilly some ten 

 or twelve years ago, a German invention, remark- 

 able for its ingenuity and the wonderful accuracy 

 with which it imitated, in an exaggerated degree, 

 the kicks, plunges, and other outrages practised 

 by the most restive of the species to unseat their 

 riders. Shaped in the truest symmetry, clad in a 

 real horse's skin, with flowing mane and tail, this 

 automaton represented the live animal in every 

 particular, but for the pivot on which it turned, a 

 shaft entering the belly below its girths, and com- 

 municating through the floor with the machinery 

 that set in motion and reoulated its astonishing 

 vagaries. On mounting, the illusion was complete, 



93 



