All the world was to figure on horseback--the horses themselves no bad evidence of the exertions used to mount the party. Here was a rugged pony from the Ardennes, with short neck and low shoulder, his head broad as a bull’s, and his counter like the bow of a Dutch galliot; there, a great Flemish beast, seventeen hands high, with a tail festooned over a straw ‘bustle,’ and even still hanging some inches on the ground-- straight in the shoulder, and straighter in the pasterns, giving the rider a shock at every motion that to any other than a Fleming would lead to concussion of the brain. Here stood an English thoroughbred, sadly ‘shook’ before, and with that tremulous quivering of the forelegs that betokens a life of hard work; still, with all his imperfections, and the mark of a spavin behind, he looked like a gentleman among a crowd of low fellows--a reduced gentleman it is true, but a gentleman still; his mane was long and silky, his coat was short and glossy, his head finely formed, and well put on his long, taper, and well-balanced neck. Beside him was a huge Holsteiner, flapping his broad flanks with a tail like a weeping ash--a great massive animal, that seemed from his action as if he were in the habit of ascending stairs, and now and then got the shock one feels when they come to a step too few. Among the mass there were some ‘Limousins’--pretty, neatly formed little animals, with great strength for their appearance, and showing a deal of Arab breeding--and an odd Schimmel or two from Hungary, snorting and pawing like a war-horse; but the staple was a collection of such screws as every week are to be seen at Tattersall’s auction, announced as ‘first- rate weight-carriers with any foxhounds, fast in double and single harness, and “believed” sound by the owner.’ Well, what credulous people are the proprietors of horses! These are the great exports to the Low Countries, repaid in mock Van Dycks, apocryphal Rembrandts, and fabulous Hobbimas, for the exhibition of which in our dining-rooms and libraries we are as heartily laughed at as they are for their taste in manners equine. And in the same way exactly as we insist upon a great name with our landscape or our battle, so your Fleming must have a pedigree with his hunter. There must be ‘dam to Louisa,’ and ‘own brother to Ratcatcher’ and Titus Oates, that won the ‘Levanter Handicap’ in--no matter where. Oh dear, oh dear! when shall we have sense enough to go without Snyders and Ostade? And when will Flemings be satisfied to ride on beasts which befit them--strong of limb, slow of gait, dull of temper, and not over-fastidious in feeding; whose parentage has had no registry, and whose blood relations never were chronicled?