"No, indeed; he is more like hasty pudding."

"Brother, brother, that is a poor paronomasia, only worthy of Sir John Minnis, or Dr. Smith, whose quiddets-wo-woho!—whose quiddets, I say, you may have read in the Musarum 'Deliciæ. What can be the matter with the beast? Perhaps the poor creature is hungry, and if so, I ought not to have been put upon his back till he had fed, inasmuch as I am no Hippodamus, and do not pretend to be flectere doctus equos. Ha! what was that? I protest I was almost off!"

"Oh all ye kickshaws and kicksey-wickseys!" ejaculated Kit, "Dumpling has thrown up his heels!"

"Goodnow, I suspected as much! what can he want? did you ever know him do SO before ?"

"No, Sir," replied Kit, "whenever I have known him to kick, it has always been behind. I'm sure the creature used to be as tame as a mad bull, and as quiet as a cat-a-mountain. Check him, Sir, check him!"

"I do, but he will not stop, even for an instant. Stare loco nescit, like the horse whom Virgil describes in his third Georgic.

poor fellow, Soho!"

Soho,

“Paul, Paul! take care how you use that expression," cried the Squire; " it was the word of battle at Sedgemoor, chosen by the Duke of Monmouth, because, as I presume, his London house was in Soho Square, and it may bring you into trouble, if you are thus heard shouting it upon the King's highway. There he goes again! never mind him Paul, stick your knees in, keep well back in the saddle. That's it! Mort de ma vie! I wish Gibbons the sculptor were here to take model of you for an Equestrian statue. Ha! did Dumpling think to

throw you by that fling?

'Sdeath! a centaur

might as well attempt to throw himself from his own back."

"Goodnow, brother, the creature is mad, he gets worse and worse, nothing but up and down, up and down;-I might as well be tossed in a blanket-one would think he had war and tumult in his belly, like the Trojan horse. Ha!

another kick! I protest I shall be thrown." And without resigning the reins the discomfited, though not intimidated scholar sought an inglorious safety by twisting the forefinger of his left hand in the mane of his refractory steed.

"Daffodils and dumplings!" cried Kit"seize the crupper, Sir, with the other hand, give him his head, and the beast will go as gently as a cracker in the air."

Obeying this insidious advice, which indeed seemed well calculated to give him a firmer seat, the unlucky cavalier grasped the crupper with his right hand, thus galling the animal still more, and occasioning it to practice a rapid succession of kicks and plunges, until its rider, whose hat was jerked off at the outset, but who still kept his seat with a marvellous tenacity, formed no unapt anticipation of the tailor riding to Brentford, as it is at present enacted in some of our amphitheatres. Sympathizing with the apparent delirium of Dumpling, the dogs barked and bounded around him, kicking up the

dust on all sides; the Squire and Kit followed close at their heels, laughing and hallooing; and as the words were jerked out of Mapletoft's mouth, like pellets from a popgun, he might be heard by snatches exclaiming-" goodnow! -Bellerophon!-I protest!-Phaeton !-Soho, poor fellow!-Bucephalus !-quæ te dementia cepit?-Virgil-Wo-ho?"

In this manner the capering, barking, laughing, shouting, dust-enveloped party soon overtook the ladies, when Mrs. Colyton had no sooner discovered the perilous antics of Dumpling, than she became seriously alarmed for her brother's safety, and, like Mrs. Gilpin in a similar predicament, called out to him most earnestly to stop and dismount.

"Goodnow-Becky-Catiline-abiit—evasit -excessit," were the only sounds that could be heard from the passing horseman-“ The rest the gods dispersed in empty air."-How long Dumpling might have continued to perform these capriccios, or what might have been their termination, it is impossible to say, had not the

crupper fortunately come unbuckled, when the scholar in one of his jerks drew it from under the tail of the animal, who was no sooner freed from the cause of all his irritation than he presently drew up, shook himself all over, turned round his head, whinnied, and stood perfectly still as if awaiting the arrival of the other horses, a truce of which his rider took advantage to adjust himself afresh in the stirrups, take out his pocket-handkerchief, remove his spectacles, and wipe the profuse perspiration from his reddened face and brow. The Squire and Kit presently came up, when the latter restored his hat, exclaiming "Castor and Pollux! Beavers and Bear-gardens! you stuck to your saddle, Sir, like a monkey upon a dancing bear! I can't think what can have possessed the beast, though to be sure it has afforded rare sport to master, who has been as happy and gigglesome as a live eel in a frying-pan."

"Paul, Paul!" cried the Squire, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes, "I had no idea you were such a horseman. Zooks! I