I.-THE confirmation of your suspicions, that a rushing, hardmouthed, runaway hunter (the "property of a gentleman going abroad") does not go better in a snaffle.

II.-Riding a dozen miles to meet the hounds at Stretton (in-theVale), and finding on your arrival, that the fixture is at Stretton (inthe-woodlands).

III.-Turning over at an awkward place, when your horse gets loose, and runs forward half a mile; leaving you to follow (through the newly-ploughed field) at your leisure.

IV.-Leading over, as above-with this difference, that your tit runs half a mile backward instead of forward.

V.-The state of your boots, on trying to get them into the stirrups again, after either of the above adventures.

VI. Having trusted to your friend to give you a mount (in a strange country), finding yourself perched upon a piebald.

VII.-Finding, at a Hunt supper, that you have got a reputation for singing, which is a thing you despise; and none at all for riding, which is what you pique yourself upon.

VIII.-Finding, on putting on your short-sight spectacles at the moment of a find, that you have in mistake brought the green ones, used by you in ascending Mont Blanc.

IX. Having trusted to your valet to bring down your short-sights, aged 28, finding (just as the hounds are going away) that he has substituted your grandmother's reading-glasses, ætat 82.

X.-The probability, towards the end of a long blank day, that the

next draw will be the covert by your own house, when you are certain that your wife is having a make-shift dinner in your absence, and the wine merchant has not yet sent home the cherry brandy.

XI. Announcing your quite-positiveness of having heard a holl in the direction of the farm-house, and setting the whole field to listen to the repetition of--cock-a-doodle-doo!

XII.—In otter-hunting, your glory in drawing out the black rascal from under a dark bank, where you have succeeded in spearing him— reversed on finding that you have spitted a favourite black hound instead.

XIII. On your way to the blacksmith's shop, to have a shoe fastened which you have just cast in the run, recollecting that the four men with black faces, whom you left dodging after the hounds, must be the blacksmiths themselves, taking a holiday in honour of the chase.

XIV. Your feelings on ascertaining that you have staked a valuable hunter with the additional mortification of reflecting that the animal belongs to a friend.

XV.-Ditto, ditto: with the extra-additional mortification that the animal belongs to yourself.

XVI. Being out hunting with an "illustrious personage," when, to all your questions-of "Which way did the fox go?" " Where are the hounds?" &c., you receive but one sort of reply, elucidatory of the movements of "His Rial Iness."

XVII.-Calling out "Ware wheat!" in the middle of a knot of young farmers, to a gentleman who is riding over seeds.

XVIII.-The mock courage with which you abandon your hat in the middle of a sharp burst, and the real misery you fell all day after, for the want of it.

XIX.-Riding in front of a man on a wild, bolting, hard-mouthed, devil of a horse, and behind another on a very slow jumper; so that you have the option either of riding down your friend before, or being ridden down by your friend behind.

XX. On a hard-mouthed, rather-runawayishly-inclined horse, going at racing pace down a stony lane, full of sharp corners.

XXI.-Twigging an amorous couple in a romantic lane, and finding on closer inspection (by yourself and the whole field) said couple to consist of your wife and her cousin the captain.

XXII. Being out on your thorough-bred-'un in a heavy plow country-and

XXIII. On your cob when pug takes a fine turf line.

XXIV.-Going at a bullfinch, which let you through well enough last year, but has no notion at all of doing so this.

XXV. Leading a lot of old stagers down a long lane (the hounds not in view), your only motive in so doing, being your conviction that, as they are going that way, it must be "all right," and finding at last that they thought you knew the hounds were for'ard in that direction.

XXVI.-Riding a rushing, hard-mouthed horse in a high wind :charming especially at the jumps, when, the moment you attempt to crush your hat down, the rascal begins to run away double.

XXVII. Taking down your otter spear, and finding that though the head is in perfectly good repair, the staff is reduced to a mass of wormwood. No time for a better substitute than a broomstail borrowed of the housemaid.

XXVIII.-A very small hole in the knee of your breeks, which at every lurch becomes larger till it has attained its knee plus ultra. N. B. Being of manly habits, only wear socks.

XXIX. Having offered to mount a dear friend, and ardent lover of the chase-being taken at your word.

XXX.-The coolness with which your veterinary surgeon orders your favourite hunter (which you thought would be "all right" again by next Thursday) to be blistered and warm-mashed, and turned into a loose box for the next six months, and then begins to talk of the weather and Mehemet Ali.

XXXI.-Riding "a good second" to another man, down a dirty lane, when, having splashed you from top to toe, he finishes by bunging up your eye with a hoof-full of mud.

XXXII.-Having volunteered to "take the stag" on occasion of your being well up at the end of a run, finding said stag by no means so dead beat as you fancied him to be.

And lastly:

XXXIII. Having to walk in your boots sixteen or eighteen miles after a long day, leading your horse, who is dead beat, if not lamein a terrific rain storm, which does not cease till just as you get home; where you find the house in possession of the bailiffs, and your wife eloped with her cousin, the captain-leaving seven small children, and her aged mother behind her-and an affectionate farewell letter on the dressing-room table.

177

HORSE BUYERS AND HORSE SELLERS.

"Audi alteram partem."

I Do not believe that on the face of the earth there exists a more ill-used class of men than the London horsedealers. I am not going to become their champion. I am only desirous of fairly stating their position with regard to many of their customers, on whom their good or bad name mainly depends leaving my readers, if I have any, to draw their own conclusions.

A first-rate London dealer buys and sells many hundred horses annually. Nearly all of them he collects at the chief country fairs from their breeders, young, raw, and fleshy, for breeders know better than to knock their young stock about by much riding or exercise. All that is required of a five-year-old at a fair, is, that he shall possess freedom of action, be well-shaped, fat, sleek, and unblemished.

After each provincial fair, a string of these fat beasts arrives at every London dealer's stable. The dealer can know but little about them individually. Many he has never seen until they reach his premises, they having been purchased by his agents in the country; all he knows is, that he has spared neither time nor expence in collecting as good a lot as he could, for his own emolument, and his customers' convenience.

If the animals have been judiciously selected, it is probable that, were each horse, when transferred to the stable of a customer, to have fair play, be properly cared for, and not expected to work until his fat had given place to muscle, and until his paces had been confirmed, and his temper corrected by a skilful and patient horseman, the greater number of them would turn out satisfactorily both for buyer and seller. Yet from the ignorance, meanness, or duplicity both of masters and servants, the reverse too frequently occurs!

I will endeavour to sketch one or two cases, which will I think strike every person who has owned many horses, as not entirely unfamiliar to him.

Mr. Browne, a gentleman, enters Mr. Crupper's, a dealer's yard.In the first place, Mr. Browne may be an idler, merely desirous of spending an hour amongst horses, and of displaying or improving his equine knowledge at the dealer's expense.

He looks through the stables, causes half a dozen horses to be led out, saddled, mounted, leaped, exerted in every possible manner; and then, after finding as many faults as he conveniently can with the animal's paces and shape, he strolls leisurely out of the premises, giving the dealer very fair reason for concluding, that he never had the slightest intention of making any purchase at all.

What is ladies' shopping to this? What is the rolling up or refolding a few yards of silk, or calico, compared to drying half-a-dozen inflammatory young horses, excited by the whip and spur almost to madness? Yet if the dealer appears displeased at the gentleman's operations, or unwilling to allow his stables to be turned topsy turvy for his pastime, Mr. Browne tells all his friends that Crupper is an insolent rascal, and all Mr. Browne's friends readily believe him, for it is a notorious truism that all horse dealers are so.

Supposing, however, that Mr. Browne really does want a horse; if it is to be a hackney, he will probably exact from the dealer a warranty that it can go hunting also; if he requires a hunter, it must of course be good on the road, and have no striking objections to harness. He expects him to be as quiet as a sheep, of great courage, beautiful in shape, perfect in action, unblemished, yet experienced in the vicissitudes of the hunting field; round as a prize pig, yet fit to go to work immediately-and all this at five or six years old.

If the dealer will warrant his horse to possess, in an eminent degree, all these qualities (and any others which may occur to Mr. Browne on the spur of the moment), Mr. Browne, if he be a liberal fellow, will not object to give a fair market price for the phenomenon, say £105, taking unlimited credit or not, according to his prospects on the Leger.

Having written a cheque for the price agreed upon, and secured such a warranty from the dealer, as he must know, if he be not an idiot, to be an absurdity from beginning to end, Mr. Browne mounts his new purchase and rides it away to test its qualifications.

Now if Mr. Browne be a baddish rider, the first omnibus which turns up settles the question at once; the young horse, although warranted quiet on a half-crown stamp, never having beheld a vehicle of the kind before, is naturally startled at the clatter of the "infernal machine," springs across the road, and unships its new owner, who returns on foot to Mr. Crupper's, foaming at the mouth, at what he calls the dealer's rascality in selling him a restive animal.

He does not for a moment consider that it is an utter impossibility for Mr. Crupper to be thoroughly acquainted with the temper of every horse which passes through his hands; neither does he stop to inquire how far he himself is qualified to conduct a colt through the shows of London.-It may here be objected that if a dealer cannot depend on a horse's temper, he ought not to warrant it quiet,-but an animal which under one man will be perfectly manageable, is often viewed by another, who does not possess l'habitude du cheval, in the light of a wild beast; and any one in his senses ought to be aware that even a blind jackass might be excused for shying at three omnibuses charging in line, as is "their custom of an afternoon" in the Edgware Road, or at Punch and Judy, or at one of the advertising locomotives, or any such like metropolitan peculiarities.