p little wisdom there dwells;
They may say he who wears it should wear it with bells;
But when Broadbrim lies flat,
I will answer him pat,
Oh! who but a crackskull would ride in a hat!"

SQUIRE WARBURTON.

[Illustration: Rails and Double Ditch.]

FOOTNOTES:

[147-*] At an inquest on a young lady killed at Totnes in September
last, it appeared that she lost her seat and hung by a _crinoline
petticoat_ from the right hand _pommel_!

CHAPTER X.

ON HUNTING.

"The sailor who rides on the ocean,
Delights when the stormy winds blow:
Wind and steam, what are they to horse motion?
Sea cheers to a land Tally-ho?
The canvas, the screw, and the paddle,
The stride of the thorough-bred hack,
When, fastened like glue to the saddle,
We gallop astern of the pack."

TARPORLEY HUNT SONG, 1855.

Advantage of hunting.--Libels on.--Great men who have
hunted.--Popular notion unlike reality.--Dick Christian and the
Marquis of Hastings.--Fallacy of "lifting" a horse refuted.--Hints
on riding at fences.--Harriers discussed.--Stag-hunting a necessity
and use where time an object.--Hints for novices.--Tally-ho!
expounded.--To feed a horse after a hard ride.--Expenses of horse
keep.--Song by Squire Warburton, "A word ere we start."

Every man who can ride, and, living within a couple of hours' distance
of a pack of hounds, can spare a day now and then, should hunt. It will
improve his horsemanship, enlarge his circle of acquaintance, as well as
his tastes and sympathies, and make, as Shakspeare hath it--

"Good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both."

Not that I mean that every horseman should attempt to follow the hounds
in the first flight, or even the second; because age, nerves, weight, or
other good reasons may forbid: but every man who keeps a good hack may
meet his friends at cover side, enjoy the morning air, with a little
pleasant chat, and follow the hounds, if not in the front, in the rear,
galloping across pastures, trotting through bridle gates, creeping
through gaps, and cantering along the green rides of a wood, thus
causing a healthy excitement, with no painful reaction: and if,
unhappily, soured or overpressed by work and anxious thoughts, drinking
in such draughts of Lethe as can no otherwise be drained.

Hunting has suffered as much from overpraise as from the traditionary
libel