REVIEWS. 
169 
the races. Our author being critical without satire, thus 
epitomises his description of the various methods of sustain¬ 
ing the equilibrium under difficulties :— 
One man sitting at one end of the saddle, as in an easy 
chair, with his legs tucked up at the other, till his knees are 
nearly on a level with the pommel; whilst a second, sitting 
on his fork, sticks out his legs as stiff and as far away from 
his horse as he can, taking for his model what is very aptly 
named in ^ Harry Lorrequer,’ ^ the pair of tongs across a 
stone-wall seat.’ ” 
At page 97 we have the remedy— 
The grand end is to arrange the saddle itself and the 
stirrups, so that the rider can only sit in the proper position 
that he falls naturally into it, and that it requires no mus¬ 
cular effort to maintain iti^^ 
Proper construction and arrangement of the bit are indis¬ 
pensable to the due guidance of the animal, and the 
usual sins of commission are very clearly pointed out by the 
author, whose arguments on this point of the subject are, as 
in other cases, compressed into a short sentence at the end of 
the chapter:— 
To conclude, lightness, accuracy, easy motion, a total 
absence of stiffness, constraint, or painful motion, are the 
characteristics of good hitting ; and if these he attained, ready 
obedience to the ridefs hand and heel toill be the result. 
Vice and restiveness, with the means of prevention and cure, 
form the concluding subjects, and are admirably handled by 
the writer. All who care to know" something of the art and 
science of riding will profit more than they can imagine by 
a careful perusal of the book, every page of which deserves 
assiduous study. The horse and his rider are equally indebted 
to Major Dwyer for his effort to promote a better understand¬ 
ing between them ; the quadruped will doubtless express his 
gratitude by an intelligent obedience to the master who 
punctually carries out the author’s maxims; the ‘^nobler 
animal ” will best show his appreciation of the work by the 
admission that there is something yet to be achieved by the 
nation which aspires to a position of equestrian eminence 
before its reputation can be honestly maintained. 
