HORSE SENSE AND NONSENSE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—I have just been shown your review of Horse Sense and Sensibility—the notice, I mean, which was written by Mr. Pomponius Ego. There ! I knew I should get mixed up : but the review has given me (lulled, as I was, into a smug complacency by certain other notices) the brutal shock of " a bad churning "—a shock such as drove poor Mr. Jorrocks " half frantic with rage " when he " Read Hego's account of me, my missus, my miss, my 'ats, my pork-pyes, and my 'ounds."
Is your reviewer, Sir, a very old gentleman—or is he, I wonder, a rather young one ? I can't make him out. You see, he says such queer things : he says my book is rather irritating and not very original or interesting (and those are quite sensible remarks, even if they do make me all purple in the face) : but then he adds that " the book is pleasant enoueh." I think he must be a -very old gentleman, because, although he is obviously feeling so cross, he is so kind. " Perhaps, indeed," he remarks of me, " perhaps, indeed, he has very little to say about horses." Of course, Sir, what the kind- hearted old fellow means is that I can't tell him anything about horses. That is obvious, but I really believe I should have gone away thinking that nobody could teach him any- thing, if he hadn't gone and spiked his own guns, so to speak, with that " thoroughpin," to which he makes such airy references. It maddens me that your reviewer should compel me, once again, to try to find out what thoroughpin really is but it delights me to discover that " a paragraph on bog spavin " is far from supplying the answer, " doubtless." Both are " doubtless " synovial enlargements—but so is a capped knee.—I am, Sir, &c., " CRASCREDO " [Space compels us to omit a large part of this letter. Our reviewer says : " I recommend the book to those who like Crascredo's ' manner. I once had a pigsticker afflicted with thoroughpin, which is, as I implied, similar to bog spavin."—En. Spectator.]
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