"When I followed my father," he says, "on a pony of my own, on my
first journey to Cambridge, I fell off seven times. My father, on
hearing a thump, would turn his head half aside, and say, 'Take care
of thy money, lad!'" This defect he never overcame: for when advanced
in years, he acknowledged he was still so bad a horseman, "that if any
man on horseback were to come near me when I am riding," he would say,
"I should certainly have a fall; company would take off my attention,
and I have need of all I can command to manage my horse, the quietest
creature that ever lived; one that, at Carlisle, used to be covered
with children from the ears to the tail."