But All These Efforts To Educate English Boys On The Lines Of French
Ones Came To Nothing, Because At The Close Of The Seventeenth Century
Englishmen Began To Realize That It Was Not Wise For A Gentleman To
Confine Himself To A Military Life.
As to riding as a fine art, his
practical mind felt that it was all very well to amuse
Oneself in Paris
by learning to make a war-horse caracole, but there was no use in taking
such things too seriously; that in war "a ruder way of riding was more
in use, without observing the precise rules of riding the great
horse."[263] He could not feel that artistic passion for form in
horsemanship which breathes from the pages of Pluvinel's book Le
Maneige Royal[264] in which magnificent engravings show Louis XIII.
making courbettes, voltes, and "caprioles" around the Louvre, while a
circle of grandees gravely discuss the deportment of his charger. Even
Sir Philip Sidney made gentle fun of the hippocentric universe of his
Italian riding master:
"When the right vertuous Edward Wotton, and I, were at the Emperors
Court together, wee gave ourselves to learne horsemanship of John Pietro
Pugliano: one that with great commendation had the place of an esquire
in his stable. And hee, according to the fertilnes of the Italian wit,
did not onely afoord us the demonstration of his practise, but sought to
enrich our mindes with the contemplations therein, which hee thought
most precious. But with none I remember mine eares were at any time more
loden, then when (ether angred with slowe paiment, or mooved with our
learner-like admiration,) he exercised his speech in the prayse of his
facultie.
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