The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual.

by Anonymous.

PREFACE.

The following pages contain a Treatise on the Art of Riding on Horseback, for Ladies, which originally appeared in the Publishers'

well-known Manual of elegant feminine Recreations, Exercises, and Pursuits, THE YOUNG LADY'S BOOK; with, however, various additions to the Text, and a number of new Ill.u.s.trations and Embellishments.

In offering the Treatise, thus improved and adorned, in a separate form, the Publishers, it need scarcely be said, have been influenced, materially, by that high and most extensive patronage, which, under Royal auspices, has been conferred by the ladies of this country, since the commencement of the present reign, on the Art of which it is the subject.

THE YOUNG LADY'S EQUESTRIAN MANUAL.

Our Virgin Queen, peerless Elizabeth, With grace and dignity rode through the host: And proudly paced that gallant steed, as though He knew his saddle was a royal throne.

INTRODUCTION.

Riding on Horseback is, confessedly, one of the most graceful, agreeable, and salutary of feminine recreations. No att.i.tude, perhaps, can be regarded as more elegant than that of a lady in the modern side-saddle; nor can any exercise be deemed capable of affording more rational and innocent delight, than that of the female equestrian.

Pursued in the open air, it affords a most rapid, and, at the same time, exhilarating succession of scenic changes, at a degree of personal exertion, sufficient to produce immediate pleasure, without inducing the subsequent languor of fatigue.

Nor is riding on horseback attended with that danger to ladies, attributed to it by the indolent, the melancholy, and the timid.

Accidents, indeed, in the side-saddle, are of extremely rare occurrence.

Strange as it may seem, it is, however, an incontrovertible fact, that horses, in general, are much more docile and temperate, with riders of the fair s.e.x, than when mounted by men. This may be attributed, partially, to the more backward position, in the saddle, of the former than the latter; but, princ.i.p.ally, perhaps, to their superior delicacy of hand in managing the reins.

As an active recreation, and a mode of conveyance, riding on horseback appears to have been of very remote usage among our fair countrywomen.

During a long period, indeed, it was the only one known to, or, adopted by them, for the performance of journies. Such, too, appears to have been the case (with some modifications) in other European countries. The only _voiture_ of the French, says Garsault, until the reign of Charles the Sixth, was the back of the horse or mule: neither Kings, Queens, Princes, nor subjects were acquainted with any other. In the time of that monarch, litters, borne by two horses, first appeared; but these were uncovered, and used, only, by ladies of the court. Froissart describes Isabel, the second wife of Richard the Second of England, as having been borne "en une litiere moult riche, qui etoit ordonnee pour elle;" and this kind of vehicle, during the reigns of several succeeding Monarchs, appears to have been used by women of distinction in this country, but, only, it is to be observed, in cases of illness, or on occasions of ceremony. For example,--when Margaret, daughter of Henry the Seventh, went into Scotland, she generally rode "a faire palfrey;"

while, after her, was conveyed "one vary riche litere, borne by two faire coursers, vary n.o.bly drest; in the which litere the sayd Queene was borne in the intrying of the good townes, or otherwise, to her good playsher."

Towards the end of the thirteenth century, vehicles with wheels, for the use of ladies, were first introduced. They appear to have been of Italian origin, as the first notice of them is found in an account of the entry of Charles of Anjou into Naples; on which occasion, we are told, his queen rode in a _careta_, the outside and inside of which were covered with sky-blue velvet, interspersed with golden lilies. Under the Gallicised denomination of _char_, the Italian _careta_, shortly afterwards became known in France; where, so early as the year 1294, an ordinance was issued by Philip the Fair, forbidding its use to citizens'

wives. Nor was England far behind in the adoption of the vehicle; for, in "The Squyr of Low Degree," a poem supposed to have been written anterior to the time of Chaucer, we find the father of a royal lady promising that she shall hunt with him, on the morrow, in "_a chare_,"

drawn by

"Jennettes of Spain that ben so white, Trapped to the ground with velvet bright."

"It shall be covered with velvet red, And clothes of fine gold all about your head; With damask white and azure blue, Well diapered with lilies blue."

However richly ornamented, the _careta_, _char_, or _chare_--and there is little, if any, doubt, to be entertained as to their ident.i.ty--may have been, it was, probably, a clumsy, inelegant, and inconvenient structure; for its employment appears to have been far from general among high-born ladies, even on occasions of ceremony and pomp. During the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, the French Princesses usually rode on donkies; and so late as the year 1534, a sacred festival was attended by Queen Eleonora, and the females of the blood royal of France, on horseback. Nor did the superior and more recent invention of coaches, for a long period, tend materially to supersede, among ladies, the use of the saddle. These vehicles, according to Stow, became known, in England, in 1580; but, many years after, Queen Elizabeth herself is described as having appeared, almost daily, on her palfrey. In the time of Charles the Second, the fas.h.i.+on, among ladies, of riding on horseback, declined; during subsequent reigns, it gradually revived; and the exercise may now be regarded as firmly established, among our fair countrywomen, by the august example of their ill.u.s.trious Queen.

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The present graceful, secure, and appropriate style of female equestrianism is, however, materially different from that of the olden time. In by-gone days, the dame or damosel rode precisely as the knight or page. Of this, several ill.u.s.trations occur in an illuminated ma.n.u.script of the fourteenth century, preserved in the Royal Library. In one of these, a lady of that period is depicted on horseback, enjoying the pastime of the chase. In another, are represented two gentlewomen of the same period, on horseback, with an individual of the other s.e.x, engaged (as is shewn by some parts of the design, which it would be needless, for our present purpose, to copy) in the once much-favoured diversion of Hawking.

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Queen Elizabeth, says a writer in the Encyclopaedia Londinensis, "seems to have been the first who set the ladies the more modest fas.h.i.+on of riding sideways. Considerable opposition was, at first, made to it, as inconvenient and dangerous: but, practice, in time, brought it into general use; particularly when ladies found they could ride a-hunting, take flying leaps, and gallop over cross roads and ploughed fields, without meeting with more accidents than the men: besides, it was not only allowed to be more decorous, but, in many respects, more congenial to the ease and comfort of a female rider."

Our author is, however, wrong in ascribing the fas.h.i.+on of riding sideways, by women in this country, to Elizabeth; by whom it could only have been confirmed, or, at the most, revived;--the honour of its introduction being clearly attributable to another Queen of England, who lived at a much more early period of our history.

Ann of Bohemia, consort of Richard the Second, is the ill.u.s.trious personage to whom we allude. She, it was, according to Stow (whom Beckman follows on this point), that originally shewed the women of this country how gracefully and conveniently they might ride on horseback sideways. Another old historian, enumerating the new fas.h.i.+ons of Richard the Second's reign, observes, "Likewise, n.o.ble ladies then used high heads and cornets, and robes with long trains, and seats, or _side-saddles_, on their horses, by the example of the respectable Queen, Ann, daughter of the King of Bohemia; who first introduced the custom into this kingdom: for, before, women of every rank rode as men do" (T. ROSSII, _Hist. Re. Ang._ p. 205). In his beautiful ill.u.s.trative picture of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, Stothard appears to have committed an anachronism, in placing the most conspicuous female character of his fine composition sideways on her steed. That the lady should have been depicted riding in the male fas.h.i.+on, might, it strikes us, have been inferred, without any historical research on the subject, from the poet's describing her as having, on her feet,

"_a paire_ of spurres sharpe."

Neither the original example of Ann of Bohemia, nor that, in later days, of Elizabeth, as female equestrians, however extensively followed, had sufficient force, entirely to abolish, among our countrywomen, the mode of riding like the other s.e.x. In the time of Charles the Second, it appears, from a pa.s.sage in the Duke of Newcastle's great work on Horsemans.h.i.+p, to have still, at least partially, subsisted. Another writer of the seventeenth century, whose ma.n.u.scripts are preserved in the Harleian collection, speaks of it, as having been practised, in his time, by the ladies of Bury, in Suffolk, when hunting or hawking; and our venerable contemporary, Lawrence (a voluminous writer on the horse), it is worthy of remark, states, that at an early period of his own life, two young ladies of good family, then residing near Ipswich, _in the same county_, "were in the constant habit of riding about the country, in their smart doe-skins, great coats, and flapped beaver hats."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Although entirely relinquished, at present, perhaps in this country, the mode of female equestrianism under notice continues to prevail in various other localities. In the following sketch, taken from Charles Audry's magnificent "Ecole d' Equitation," a Persian lady is delineated as just about to start on a journey, in the saddle; and, in the next, which is engraved from an original drawing, "done from the life," a lady and gentleman of Lima are represented on horseback. "I have endeavoured," the artist says, in ma.n.u.script, on the reverse of his sketch, "to depict the horses '_pacing_;' as they are almost universally taught to do, in Peru: that is, to move both the legs, of one side, forward together. It resembles an English butcher's trot in appearance; but, it is so easy, that one might go to sleep on the horse: and, after riding '_a pacer_,' it is difficult to sit a trotter at first. It is, also, excessively rapid;--good _pacers_ beating other horses at a gallop. The ladies of Lima do not always ride with the face covered: but, only, when the sun is powerful. They, sometimes, ride in _ponchos_, like the men: in fact, it is excessively difficult, at first sight, to determine whether a person on horseback be male or female."

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The side-saddle introduced to this country by Ann of Bohemia, differed, materially, from that now used by British ladies; having, no doubt, been a mere pillion, on which the rider sate, as in a chair.

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At what period our fair countrywomen first began to ride with the knee over the pommel, we are not enabled to state: it is, however, clear, according to the original of the above sketch, which occurs in one of the historical ill.u.s.trations of equestrianism, given by Audry, that the courtly dames of England did so, about the middle of the seventeenth century. Our author describes the figure, as being that of the Countess of Newcastle.

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It may be conjectured, that a single crutch, only, for the advanced leg, was at first used; and this, it is not improbable, was fixed on the centre of the pommel, as in the lady's saddle, now, or at least very lately, common in some parts of Mexico; where the women, it would seem, ride with the left hand towards the animal's head. This, also, appears to have been, sometimes, the case, down to a recent period, in our own country; for, in rather a modern description of the side-saddle, the crutches are spoken of as being moveable, in order to afford a lady, by merely changing their relative positions, the means of riding, as she might please, on either side of her horse.[18-*] That a second crutch was used about the middle of the last century (we are unable to state how much earlier), in France, at least, is evident from a plate of the lady's hunting saddle, at that period, given by Garsault; in which, it is curious, a sort of hold-fast is provided for the fair equestrian's right hand. But, even so recently as Garsault's time, the saddle in ordinary use, by French women, was, we learn from his work on equitation, still, a kind of pillion, on which the rider sate, diagonally, with both feet resting on a broad suspended ledge or stirrup. The pillion in this country has not yet become obsolete; being still, frequently, to be seen, on the backs of donkies and hack ponies, at watering places. During the early part of the present century, its employment continued to be general. It was fixed behind a man's saddle, on the croup of a steady horse, trained to go at an easy though shuffling pace between a walk and a trot. The groom, or gentleman, equipped with a broad leathern belt buckled about his waist--by which the lady secured her position, in case of need--first mounted; and his fair companion was then lifted, backwards, and behind him, into her seat. In an old work on horsemans.h.i.+p, written by one William Stokes, and published at Oxford, it is not, perhaps, unworthy of notice, directions are given for vaulting into the saddle, _after_ the lady has been placed on the croup; together with a plate ill.u.s.trative of so exquisitely nice and marvellously absurd an operation. In Mexico "they manage these things," if not "better," at all events, with more gallantry, than our forefathers did, for with them, "the _pisana_, or country lady," we are told, "is often seen mounted _before_ her _cavaliero_; who, seated behind his fair one, supports her with his arm thrown around her waist." Our ill.u.s.trative sketch of this custom (in the preceding page) is taken from a beautiful model,--the work of a native Mexican artist.

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Having, now, offered our fair readers a slight and unpretending historical sketch of female equestrianism, we shall proceed, after a few preliminary remarks, to the practical details of the art.

Its various advantages, inducements, and attractions, as an exercise, have, already, been noticed. Much, however, as we wish to interest our fair countrywomen, in its favour, it is proper, on our part, to tell them, frankly, that equestrianism is far from being an intuitive art:--there is no "royal road" to it. To be enjoyed and appreciated, it must be learnt. That ease and elegance,--that comparative safety in the side-saddle, of which we have spoken,--it is impossible to achieve, without considerable practice, based upon proper principles. Many young ladies, however, feel a delicate repugnance to pa.s.sing through the ordeal of a riding-school; some, again, do not reside in situations, where the benefit of a teacher's directions can be procured; while others, erroneously flatter themselves, that they are in possession of every needful acquirement, as regards equestrianism, when they have discovered how to retain a seat on the saddle, and guide a horse by means of the bridle. To such of our readers as happen to be comprised within either of these cla.s.ses,--and to those, also, who, after having received a professor's initiative instructions, are desirous of further improvement, the following pages, if carefully perused, will, the writer most zealously hopes, prove beneficial.

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FOOTNOTES:

[18-*] Since writing the above, we have been a.s.sured by a friend, that, within a few weeks past, he has seen several ladies, at Brighton, seated on the wrong side of the horse. Side-saddles, with moveable crutches, indeed, are now far from uncommon (to our own knowledge), in saddlers' shops.

EQUESTRIAN TECHNICALITIES.