He was, also,
particularly attentive in making them bold and expert horsemen; and
these were the days when old Christy, the huntsman, enjoyed great
importance, as the lads were put under his care to practise them at
the leaping-bars, and to keep an eye upon them in the chase.
The Squire always objected to their riding in carriages of any kind,
and is still a little tenacious on this point. He often rails against
the universal use of carriages, and quotes the words of honest Nashe
to that effect. "It was thought," says Nashe, in his Quaternio, "a
kind of solecism, and to savour of effeminacy, for a young gentleman
in the flourishing time of his age to creep into a coach, and to
shroud himself from wind and weather: our great delight was to
outbrave the blustering Boreas upon a great horse; to arm and prepare
ourselves to go with Mars and Bellona into the field, was our sport
and pastime; coaches and caroches we left unto them for whom they were
first invented, for ladies and gentlemen, and decrepit age and
impotent people."
The Squire insists that the English gentlemen have lost much of their
hardiness and manhood, since the introduction of carriages. "Compare,"
he will say, "the fine gentleman of former times, ever on horseback,
booted and spurred, and travel-stained, but open, frank, manly, and
chivalrous, with the fine gentleman of the present day, full of
affectation and effeminacy, rolling along a turnpike in his voluptuous
vehicle.
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