Truly, England is the land of ‘turn-out.’ All the foreign imitations of it are most ludicrous--from Prince Max of Bavaria, who brought back with him to Munich a lord-mayor’s coach, gilding, emblazonry, wigs, and all, as the true type of a London equipage, down to those strange merry- andrew figures in orange-plush breeches and sky-blue frocks, that one sees galloping after their masters along the Champs Élysées, like insane comets taking an airing on horseback. The whole thing is absurd. They cannot accomplish it, do what they will; there’s no success in the endeavour. It is like our miserable failures to get up a _petit dîner_ or a _soirée_. If, then, French, Italians, and Germans fail so lamentably, only think, I beseech you, of Flemings--imagine Belgium _à cheval_! The author of _Hudibras_ discovered years ago that these people were fish; that their land-life was a little bit of distraction they permitted themselves to take from time to time, but that their real element was a dyke or a canal. What would he have said had he seen them on horseback? Now, I am free to confess that few men have less hope to win the world by deeds of horsemanship than Arthur O’Leary. I have ever looked upon it as a kind of presumption in me to get into the saddle. I have regarded my taking the reins as a species of duplicity on my part--a tacit assumption that I had any sort of control oyer the beast. I have appeared to myself guilty of a moral misdemeanour--the ‘obtaining a ride under false pretences.’ Yet when I saw myself astride of the ‘roan with the cut on her knee,’ and looked around me at the others, I fancied that I must have taken lessons from Franconi without knowing it; and even among the moustached heroes of the evening before, I bore myself like a gallant cavalier. ‘You sit your horse devilish like your father; he had just the same easy _dégagé_ way in his saddle,’ said the old colonel, tapping his snuff- box, and looking at me with a smile of marked approval; while he continued in a lower tone, ‘I ‘ve told Laura to get near you if the mare becomes troublesome. The Flemings, you know, are not much to boast of as riders.’ I acknowledged the favour as well as I could, for already my horse was becoming fidgety--every one about me thinking it essential to spur and whip his beast into the nearest approach to mettle, and caper about like so many devils, while they cried out to one another-- ‘Regardez, Charles, comment il est vif ce “Tear away.” C’est une bête du diable. Ah, tiens, tiens, vois donc “Albert.” Le voilà, c’est, “All-in- my-eye,” fils de “Charles Fox,” frère de “Sevins-de-main.”’ ‘Ah, marquis, how goes it? Il est beau votre cheval.’ ‘Oui, parbleu; he is frère aîné of “Kiss-mi-ladi,” qui a gagné le handicap à l’Ile du Dogs.’ And thus did these miserable imitators of Ascot and Doncaster, of Leamington and the Quorn, talk the most insane nonsense, which had been told to them by some London horse-dealer as the pedigree of their hackneys.