their morning hymn and the earth, still fresh
from the night dew, sent up a thousand delicious
perfumes. The road on either side was one
succession of handsome villas or ornamental
cottages, whose grounds were laid out in the
perfection of landscape gardening. There were but
few persons to be seen at that early hour, and
in the smokeless chimneys and closed shutters
I could read that all slept—slept in that
luxurious hour when Nature unveils, and seems to
revel in the sense of unregarded loveliness. "Ah,
Potts," said I, "thou hast chosen the wise
part; thou wilt see the world after thine own
guise, and not as others see it." Has my reader
not often noticed that in a picture-gallery the
slightest change of place, a move to the left or
right, a chance approach or retreat, suffices to
make what seemed a hazy confusion of colour
and gloss a rich and beautiful picture? So is
it in the actual world, and just as much depends
on the point from which objects are viewed. Do
not be discouraged, then, by the dark aspect of
events. It may be that by the slightest move
to this side or to that, some unlooked-for
sunlight shall slant down and light up all the scene.
Thus musing, I gained a little grassy strip that
ran along the roadside, and, gently touching
Blondel with my heel, he broke out into a
delightful canter. The motion, so easy and swimming,
made it a perfect ecstasy to sit there floating
at will through the thin air, with a moving panorama
of wood, water, and mountain around me.
Emerging at length from the thickly wooded
plain, I began the ascent of the Three Rock
Mountain, and, in my slackened speed, had full
time to gaze upon the bay beneath me, broken
with many a promontory, backed by the broad
bluff of Howth, and the more distant Lambay.
No, it is not finer than Naples. I did not say
it was; but, seeing it as I then saw it, I
thought it could not be surpassed. Indeed, I
went further, and defied Naples in this fashion:

Though no volcano's lurid light
Over thy blue sea steals along,
Nor Pescator beguiles the night
With cadence of his simple song;

Though none of dark Calabria's daughters
With tinkling lute thy echoes wake,
Mingling their voices with the water's,
As 'neath the prow the ripples break;

Although no cliffs with myrtle crown'd,
Reflected in thy tide, are seen,
Nor olives, bending to the ground
Relieve the laurel's darker green;

Yet—yet——

Ah, there was the difficulty—I had begun with
the plaintiff, and I really hadn't a word to say
for the defendant; and so, voting comparisons
odious, I set forward on my journey.

As I rode into Enniskerry to breakfast, I had
the satisfaction of overhearing some very
flattering comments upon Blondel, which rather
consoled me for some less laudatory remarks
upon my own horsemanship. By the way, can
there possibly be a more ignorant sarcasm than
to say a man rides like a tailor? Why, of all
trades, who so constantly sits straddle-legged
as a tailor? and yet he is the especial mark of
this impertinence.

I pushed briskly on after breakfast, and soon,
found myself in the deep shady woods that lead
to the Dargle. I hurried through the
picturesque demesne, associated as it was with, a
thousand little vulgar incidents of city junkettings,
and rode on for the Glen of the Downs.
Blondel and I had now established a most
admirable understanding with each other. It was
a sort of reciprocity treaty by which I bound
myself never to control him, he in turn consenting
not to unseat me. He gave the initiative to the
system, by setting off at his pleasant little rocking
canter whenever he chanced upon a bit of
favourable ground, and invariably pulled up
when the road was stony or uneven; thus showing
me that he was a beast witli what Lord
Brougham would call " a wise discretion." In
like manner he would halt to pluck any stray
ears of wild oats that grew along the hedge
sides, and occasionally slake his thirst at
convenient streamlets. If I dismounted to walk
at his side, he moved along unheld, his head
almost touching my elbow, and his plaintive blue
eye mildly beaming on me with an expression
that almost spoke—nay, it did speak. I'm sure
I felt it, as though I could swear to it, whispering,
"Yes, Potts, two more friendless creatures
than ourselves are not easy to find. The world
wants not either of us; not that we abuse it,
despise it, or treat it ungenerously—rather the
reverse, we incline favourably towards it, and
would, occasion serving, befriend it—but we are
not, so to say, ' of it.' There may be, here and
there, a man or a horse that would understand
or appreciate us, but they stand alone—they
are not belonging to classes. They are, like
ourselves, exceptional." If his expression said
this much, there was much unspoken melancholy
in his sad glance also, which seemed to say,
"What a deal of sorrow could I reveal if I
might—what injuries—what wrong—what cruel
misconceptions of my nature and disposition—
what mistaken notions of my character and
intentions! What pretentious stupidity, too, have I
seen preferred before me—creatures with, mayhap,
a glossier coat or a more silky forelock——"

"Ah, Blondel, take courage—men are just as
ungenerous, just as erring!" "Not that I have
not had my triumphs too," he seemed to say,
as, cocking This ears, and ambling with a more
elevated toss of the head, his tail would describe
an arch like a waterfall; "no salmon-coloured silk
stockings danced sarabands on my back; I was
always ridden in the Haute Ecole by Monsieur
L'Etrier himself, the stately gentleman injack-
boots and long-waisted dress-coat, whose five
minutes no persuasive bravos could ever
prolong." I thought—nay, I was certain at times
—that I could read in his thoughtful face the
painful sorrows of one who had outlived popular
favour, and who had survived to see himself
supplanted and dethroned.

There are no two destinies which chime in
so well together as that of him who is beaten