Page:Annals of horsemanship (1792).djvu/54

 this method produced a rotatory instead of a rectilinear motion. When a horse has run away, I have, to avoid the waste of force in my own arms, calculated the necessary diminution of it in his legs; but, unfortunately, estimating it as the squares of the distances multiplied into the times, I was frequently dashed against walls, pitched over gates, and plunged into ponds, before I discovered that it is not as the squares of the times, but merely as the times. I mention these circumstances by way of caution to other theorists; not being at all discouraged myself by such trifling failures, and hoping, by your assistance, to convince the world that no man can ever become a perfect rider, unless he has first made mathematics his hobby-horse. You will pardon this innocent play of words on a subject so serious, and believe me to be, Sir, with great esteem,

Yours, &c.