dia-rubber in equal proportions, very
neatly and elegantly fastened together with the finest steel springs,
and is incapable of fatigue from exertion, or injury from exposure.

Having an exalted idea of my capabilities in the way of horse exercise
(which, indeed, when I am in my usual condition, are pretty good), she
started off with me to H----, a distance of about eight miles, and we
did the whole way there and back (besides an episodical gallop, three
times full tear round a field, to tame our horses, which were wild)
either at a hard gallop or a harder trot. I, who have grown fat and
soft, and have hardly ridden since I left America, came home bruised and
beaten, and aching in every limb to that degree that I was glad to lie
down--conceive the humiliation!--and was much put to it to get up again
to dress for dinner; having, moreover, the consolation of being assured
by Lady Francis that she had ridden thus hard out of pure consideration
for me; supposing that the faster I went, the better I should be
pleased. I was, besides, mounted upon a fiery little fiend of a pony,
who pulled my arms out of their sockets and would not walk. However, by
repeating the dose every day, I suffered less and less, and am now once
more in excellent riding condition.

I remember a ludicrous circumstance of the same kind happening to me in
America, on the occasion of the first ride I ever took with my
brother-in-law, who was then comparatively a stranger to me. He was a
cavalry officer, a capital horseman, and hard rider; which qualities he
exhibited the first time I ever went out with him, by riding at such a
pace and for such a length of time that, perceiving he did not kill
himself, I asked if he was in the habit of killing his horse every time
he rode out; when he burst out laughing, and assured me that he thought
he was only conforming to my habitual pace.

Yesterday I varied my exercise, for I went out on horseback with Lord
Lansdowne, and finding the roads dangerously slippery for our horses,
which were not sharped, when we were at some distance from Bowood we
dismounted, and gave them to the groom, and came home on foot, a
distance of three miles, which, carrying one's habit [riding-skirts in
those days were very long], I think was as good as four.

You cannot conceive anything more melancholy than the aspect of
H----.... It was a miserable day, dark, dismal, and foggy; the
Manchester smoke came down, together with a penetratin