RIDING RECOLLECTIONS 



not far from Melton, at seventy-three, told me 

 that his horse, though it turned out eventually 

 one of his safest and boldest fencers, at the end 

 of six weeks' tuition would not jump the leaping- 

 bar the height of its own knees! His lordship, 

 however, who was blessed in perfection with the 

 sweet temper, as with the personal beauty and 

 o^allant bearino" of his race, neither hurried nor 

 ill-used it, and the time spent on the animal's 

 education, though somewhat wearisome, was not 

 thrown away. 



Mr. Gilmour's famous Vingt-et-un, the best 

 hunter, he protests, by a great deal that gentle- 

 man ever possessed, was quite thorough-bred. 

 Seventeen hands high, but formed all over in 

 perfect proportion to this commanding frame, it 

 may easily be imagined that the power and stride 

 of so large an animal made light of ordinary 

 obstacles ; and I do not believe, though it may 

 sound an extravagant assertion, there was a fence 

 in the whole of Leicestershire that could have 

 stopped Vingt-et-zm and his rider, on a good 

 scenting day some few years ago. Such men 

 and such horses ought never to grow old. 



Mr. William Cooke, too, owned a celebrated 

 hunter called Advance, of stainless pedigree, as 

 was December, so named from being foaled on 

 the last day of that month, a premature arrival 

 that lost him his year for racing purposes by 



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