N. P. Willis, in his delightful "Pencilings By the Way," gives a bright glimpse of the Queen on horseback. It was in Hyde Park, and he saye the party from the Palace came on so fast that the scarlet-coated outriders had difficulty in clearing the track of the other equestrians. Her Majesty has always liked to go fast by horse or steam-power, as though determined not to let Time get ahead of her, for all his wings. The poet then adds: "Her Majesty rides quite fearlessly and securely. I met her party full gallop near the centre of Rotten Row. On came the Queen, on a dun-colored, highly-groomed horse, with her Prime Minister on one side of her, and Lord Byron on the other; her _cortège_ of Maids of Honor, and Lords and Ladies of the Court checking their spirited horses, and preserving always a slight distance between themselves and Her Majesty. ... Victoria's round, plump figure looks exceedingly well in her dark green riding-dress. ... She rode with her mouth open, and seemed exhilarated with pleasure." This was in 1839. Some years later, a young American writer, who shall be nameless, but who was as passionate a lover of horses as the Queen herself, wrote a sort of pæan to horseback-riding. She began by telling her friends, all whom it might concern, that when she was observed to be low in her mind--when she seemed "weary of life," and to "shrink from its strife"--when, in short, things didn't go well with her generally, they were not to come to her with the soft tones or the tears of sympathy; then she went on thus, rather pluckily, I think: "No counsel I ask, and no pity I need, But bring me, O bring me, my gallant young steed, With his high-arched neck and his nostril spread wide; His eye full of fire, and his step full of pride. As I spring to his back, as I seize the strong rein, The strength to my spirit returneth again, The bonds are all broken that fettered my mind, And my cares borne away on the wings of the wind,-- My pride lifts its head, for a season, bowed down, And the queen in my nature now puts on her crown." Now if the simple American girl prepared for a lonely gallop through the woods, could so have thrilled with the fulness, joy, and strength of young life; could have felt so royal, mounted on a half-broken, roughly- groomed western colt (for that's what the "steed" really was), with few fine points and no pedigree to speak of--what must the glorious exercise have been to that great little Queen, re-enthroned on thoroughbred, "highly-groomed," magnificent English horse-flesh? Her Majesty has always been constant in her equine loves. Six of her saddle-horses, splendidly caparisoned, walked proudly, as so many Archbishops, in the coronation procession; and in the royal stables of London and Windsor, her old favorites have been most tenderly cared for. When she could no longer use them, she still petted them, and never reproached them for having "outlived their usefulness."