Doubtless, instruction was given in the art of riding by amateurs or by professed teachers, from the time the horse came into use. The earliest existing work on horsemanship is that of Xenophon (born 430 b.c.); then there is a hiatus until the Italian Renaissance, since which epoch we have had many works on the subject; but before Xenophon's time, and between that and the appearance of Grisone's printed work in 1550 (my copy, apparently a first edition, was dated 1560), we may be sure that there was no lack of writings upon the subject, lost through the perishable nature of the form in which an author's labors were presented. Of the early works of this second appearance the best known are those of Antoine de Pluvinel, equerry to Louis XIII. of France,—a splendid effort, published in Paris in 1619,—and that of the Duke of Newcastle, published in Antwerp in 1651. But none of the works on horsemanship which appeared previously to that of Baucher are now of any real value, and the method described by the French master is the foundation of all that is good in any modern system.
DRIVING
HINTS ON THE HISTORY, HOUSING, HARNESSING AND HANDLING OF THE HORSE
By PRICE COLLIER
Illi ardua cervix,
Argutumque caput, brevis alvus, obesaque terga,
Luxuriatque toris animosum pectus.