name,
it has made some advance towards personality."[230]

"OLD JACK" OF WATERLOO BRIDGE.

In building Waterloo Bridge, the finest of Rennie's bridges, the whole
of the stone required was hewn in some fields on the Surrey side. Nearly
the whole of this material was drawn by one horse called "Old Jack," a
most sensible animal. Mr Smiles, in his "Life of John Rennie,"[231] thus
speaks of this favourite old horse--"His driver was, generally speaking,
a steady and trustworthy man; though rather too fond of his dram before
breakfast. As the railway along which the stone was drawn passed in
front of the public-house door, the horse and truck were usually pulled
up, while Tom entered for his 'morning.' On one occasion the driver
stayed so long that 'Old Jack,' becoming impatient, poked his head into
the open door, and taking his master's coat collar between his teeth,
though in a gentle sort of manner, pulled him out from the midst of his
companions, and thus forced him to resume the day's work."

SYDNEY SMITH AND HIS HORSES.

Sydney Smith, when rector of Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire, a living
which he got from Lord Chancellor Erskine in 1806, was in the habit of
riding a good deal. His daughter says that, "either from the badness of
his horses, or the badness of his riding, or perhaps from both (in spite
of his various ingenious contrivances to keep himself in the saddle), he
had several falls, and kept us in continual anxiety."[232] He writes in
a letter--"I used to think a fall from a horse dangerous, but much
experience has convinced me to the contrary. I have had six falls in two
years, and just behaved like the three per cents. when they fall. I got
up again, and am not a bit the worse for it any more than the stock in
question." In speaking of this he says, "I left off riding for the good
of my parish and the peace of my family; for, somehow or other, my horse
and I had a habit of parting company. On one occasion I found myself
suddenly prostrate in the streets of York, much to the delight of the
Dissenters. Another time my horse Calamity flung me over his head into a
neighbouring parish, as if I had been a shuttlecock, and I felt grateful
it was not into a neighbouring planet; but as no harm came of it, I
might have persevered perhaps, if, on a certain day, a Quaker tailor
from a neighbouring village to which I had said I was going to ride, had
not taken it into his head to call, soon after my departure, and re