University of Virginia Library

HORSEMANSHIP.

Taylor the Water Poet.

I have made casual mention, more than once,
of one of the Squire's antiquated retainers, old
Christy the huntsman. I find that his crusty,
crabbed humours are a source of much entertainment
among the young gentlemen of the family,
especially the Oxonian, who takes a mischievous
pleasure, now and then, in slyly rubbing the old
man against the grain, and then amuses himself
with smoothing him down again; for the old
fellow is as ready to bristle up his back as a
porcupine. He rides an old hunter called Pepper,
which is a counterpart of himself, a most

wrathful, headstrong animal, that frets the flesh
off of its bones, bites, kicks, and plays all kinds
of villanous tricks.

He is as tough and nearly as old as his rider,
who has ridden him time out of mind, and is indeed
the only one that can do any thing with
him. Sometimes, however, they have a complete
quarrel and a dispute for mastery, and then I am
told it is as good as a farce to see the heat they
both get into, and the wrong headed contest that
ensues; for they are quite knowing in each other's
ways, and in the art of teasing and fretting
each other. Notwithstanding these doughty
brawls, however, there is nothing that nettles old
Christy sooner than to question the merits of his
horse, which he will uphold as tenaciously as
a faithful husband will vindicate the virtues of
the termagant spouse that gives him a curtain
lecture every night of his life.

The young men call Old Christy their “pro
fessor of equitation,” and in explaining this
phrase, they let me into some particulars of the
Squire's mode of bringing up his children.

There is an odd mixture of eccentricity any
good sense, in all the opinions of my worthy
host. His mind is like modern Gothic, where
plain brick work is set off with pointed arches
and quaint tracery. Though the main ground-work
of his opinions is correct, yet he has a
thousand little notions, picked up from old books,
which stand out whimsically on the surface of
his mind.

Thus, in rearing his boys, Peacham, Markham,
and such like old English writers were his
manuals. At an early age he took his lads out
of their mother's hands, who was disposed, as
mothers are apt to be, to make fine orderly children
of them, that should keep out of sun and
rain, and never soil their hands nor tear their
clothes. In place of this the Squire turned them
loose to run free and wild about the park, without
heeding wind or weather. He was, also,
particularly attentive in making them bold and
expert horsemen; and these were the days when
Old Christy the huntsman enjoyed great importance;
as the lads were put under his care to

practise them at the leaping bars, and to keep
an eye upon them in the chase.

The Squire always objected to their riding in
carriages of any kind, and is still a little tenacious
on this point. He often rails against the
universal use of carriages; and quotes the words
of honest Nashe to that effect. “It was thought,”
says Nashe in his Quaternio, “a kind of solecism,
and to savour of effeminacy, for a young
gentleman in the flourishing time of his age to
creep into his coach; and to shroud himself
from wind and weather; our great delight was
to outbrave the blustering boreas upon a great
horse; to arm and prepare ourselves to go with
Mars and Bellona into the field, was our sport
and pastime; coaches and caroches we left unto
them for whom they were first invented, for ladies
and gentlemen, and decrepid age and impotent
people.”

The Squire insists that the English gentlemen
have lost much of their hardiness and manhood
since the introduction of carriages. “Compare,”
he will say, “the fine gentleman of former

times, ever on horseback, booted and
spurred, and travel stained, but open, frank,
manly, and chivalrous, with the fine gentleman
of the present day, full of affectation and effeminacy,
rolling along a turnpike in his voluptuous
vehicle.” The young men of those days,
were rendered brave, and lofty, and generous, in
their notions by almost living in their saddles,
and having their foaming steeds “like proud
seas under them.” “There is something,” he
adds, “in bestriding a fine horse that makes a
man feel more than mortal. He seems to have
doubled his nature; and to have added to his
own courage and sagacity, the power, the speed,
and stateliness of the superb animal on which
he is mounted.

“It is a great delight,” says old Nashe, “to see
a young gentleman with his skill and cunning,
by his voice, rod, and spur, better to manage
and to command the great Bucephalus, than the
strongest Milo, with all his strength; one while
to see him make him tread, trot, and gallop the
ring; and one after to see him make him gather

up roundly; to bear his head steadily; to run a
full career swiftly; to stop a sudden lightly; anon
after to see him make him advance, to yorke, to
go back and sidelong, to turn on either hand;
to gallop the gallop galliard; to do the capriole,
the chambetta, and dance the carvetty.”

In conformity to these ideas, the Squire had
them all on horseback at an early age, and made
them ride, slap dash, about the country, without
flinching at hedge or ditch or stone wall, to the
imminent danger of their necks.

Even the fair Julia was partially included in
this system, and, under the instruction of old
Christy, has become one of the best horsewomen
in the county. The Squire says it is better than
all the cosmetics and sweeteners of the breath
that ever were invented. He extols the horsemanship
of the ladies in former times; when Queen
Elizabeth would scarcely suffer the rain to stop her
accustomed ride; “and then think,” he will say,
“what nobler and sweeter beings it made them.”
What a difference must there be, both in mind
and body, between a joyous high spirited dame

of those days, glowing with health and exercise,
freshened by every breeze that blows; seated
loftily and gracefully in her saddle, with plume
on head and hawk on hand;—and her descendant
of the present day, the pale victim of modern
routs and ball rooms, sunk languidly in one corner
of an enervating carriage.”

The good Squire's equestrian system has had
a happy effect, for his sons having passed through
the whole course of instruction without breaking
neck or limb, are now healthful, spirited, and
active, and have the true Englishman's love for
a horse. If their manliness and frankness are
praised in their father's hearing, he quotes the
old Persian maxim, and says, they have been
taught to ride, to shoot, and to speak the
truth.

It is true the Oxonian has now and then practised
the old gentleman's doctrines a little in the
extreme. He is a wild youngster, rather fonder
of his horse than his book, with a little dash of
the dandy; though the ladies all pronounced
him to be the “flower of the flock.”

The first year that he was sent to Oxford he
had a private tutor appointed to overlook him;
a dry chip of the University. When he returned
home in the vacation, the Squire made many
inquiries about how he liked his college, and
his studies, and his tutor.

“Oh as to my tutor, sir, I've parted with
him!”

“You have! and pray why so?”

“Oh sir, hunting was all the go at our college;
so I discharged my tutor, and kept a horse, you
know.”

“Ah, I was not aware of that, Tom,” said the
Squire mildly. When Tom returned to college
his allowance was doubled, to enable him to
keep both horse and tutor.