404 REVIEW — PRACTICAL HORSEMANSHIP. 
to our edification as our amusement and delight, are we indebted 
for this useful little essay on horsemanship “for every-day use,” 
such as it should he. Admirers of the manege and military men 
will smile at us for saying this. Smile, however, they may; 
since we know from experience that the firme*st seat a man can 
have upon his horse is with short stirrups and his knees closely 
clenched in front of the stirrup leathers. And what goes far in 
confirmation of this opinion is, that our cavalry in general are now 
riding at least two holes shorter than they were instructed to do at 
the time when first military equitation came to command so much 
attention in our army; and the notions of the writer are, that one 
day they will come to ride even shorter than they yet do. Our 
author, Harry, became spurred up to write the practically, useful, 
and entertaining little work before us by the following incident : — 
“ Some time ago I was told by a valued friend that he always 
hired a horse for two months in the summer, for the benefit of air 
and exercise. * But,’ said he, ‘ the last I hired, if he came near a 
wall would always take me up to it; and for the life of me I could 
never get him away from it, till I got some one to lead him off for 
me. Now,’ continued he, * if you would write a book on common 
ordinary riding, I dare say you would tell me how I could have 
managed this horse; and depend on it, there are thousands who 
ride as I do for health, who know no more of riding than myself, 
and to them your book would be invaluable.’” — “I promised to 
make the attempt ; the result is before the reader.” — Preface , p. vii. 
In sitting down to compose such a work as the present, our 
author, it is true, has had to rake up his recollection for every 
thing he has, as a practical horseman, seen and done, so that he 
may tell his reader the best way of doing such and such things, 
and the reasons why such and such things are so and so done. 
But what strains the mind more than this! Memory must furnish 
the pen with matter; judgment must direct the hand : and though 
the writer has but to deal with the common equestrian affairs of 
life, yet to describe common things in a proper manner was a task 
at which even Byron himself experienced difficulties; hence he 
wrote, for the motto of his “ Don Juan,” Horace’s line, 
“ Difficile est proprie eommunia dicere.” 
And nothing shews the difference more conspicuously between the 
practical man — by which we mean the man who has seen and done 
