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none
of all the effeminacy stuff in the good old days
“The squire always objected to their using 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 out-brave 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. The young men of those days were rendered brave, and lofty,
and generous, in their notions, by almost living in their saddles, and
having their foaming steeds 'like proud seas under them.' There is something,"
he adds, "in bestriding a fine horse, that makes a man feel more than
mortal. He seems to have doubled his nature, and to have added to his
own courage and sagacity the power, the speed, and stateliness of the
superb animal on which he is mounted."
“ "It is a great delight," says old Nashe, "to see a young gentleman
with his skill and cunning, by his voice, rod, and spur, better to manage
and to command the great Bucephalus, than the strongest Milo, with all
his strength; one while to see him make him tread, trot, and gallop
the ring; and one after to see him make him gather up roundly; to bear
his head steadily; to run a full career swiftly; to stop a sudden lightly;
anon after to see him make him advance, to yorke, to go back and side
long, to turn on either hand; to gallop the gallop galliard; to do the
capriole, the chambetta, and dance the curvetty."
“In conformity to these ideas, the squire had them all on horseback
at an early age, and made them ride, slap-dash, about the country, without
flinching at hedge or ditch, or stone wall, to the imminent danger of
their necks.”
From the short story, “Horsemanship” in Bracebridge
Hall, written by Washington Irving in 1819;
quoted edition: 1877, MacMillan and Co., illustrated by Randolph Caldecott.
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