That Petruchio rode a hired horse is rendered probable by the wretched character of his steed and its furniture. Hudibras or Don Quixote were not worse mounted than was the Shrew-tamer: seeing that his horse was “hipped with an old mothy saddle, the stirrups of no kindred; besides, possessed with the glanders, and like to mose in the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of wind-galls, sped with spavins, raied with the yellows, past cure of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots; swayed in the back and shoulder-shotten, near-legged before, and with a half-checked bit, and a headstall of sheep’s leather; which, being restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst, and now repaired with knots; one girt six times pieced, and a woman’s crupper of velure, here and there pieced with packthread.” {30} Steele (Tatler, No. 231) has borrowed, without any acknowledgement, from ‘Taming the Shrew,’ most of the circumstances of his story; yet his adoption of them shows that such a mode of travelling was still in common use in the seventeenth century. After the honey-moon was over, the bridegroom made preparations for conveying his new spouse to her future abode. But “instead of a coach and six horses, together with the gay equipage suitable to the occasion, he appeared without a servant, mounted on a skeleton of a horse which his huntsman had, the day before, brought in to feast his dogs on the arrival of their new mistress, with a pillion fixed behind, and a case of pistols before him, attended only by a favourite hound. Thus equipped, he, in a very obliging, but somewhat positive manner, desired his lady to seat herself on the cushion; which done, away they crawled. The road being obstructed by a gate, the dog was commanded to open it; the poor cur looked up and wagged his tail: but the master, to show the impatience of his temper, drew a pistol and shot him dead. He had no sooner done it, but he fell into a thousand apologies for his unhappy rashness, and begged as many pardons for his excesses before one for whom he had so profound a respect. Soon after their steed stumbled, but with some difficulty recovered; however, the bridegroom took occasion to swear, if he frightened his wife so again, he would run him through! And, alas! the poor animal, being now almost tired, made a second trip; immediately on which the careful husband alights, and with great ceremony first takes off his lady, then the accoutrements, draws his sword, and saves the huntsman the trouble of killing him: then says he to his wife, ‘Child, prithee take up the saddle;’ which she readily did, and tugged it home, where they found all things in the greatest order, suitable to their fortune and the present occasion.” This veracious history proceeds to say that, after this practical lesson, the lady was ever remarkable for a sweet and compliant temper.