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On the Classes and Breeds of British Horses. By David 

 Low, Esq., F.R.S.E., Professor of Agriculture in the 

 University of Edinburgh, Member of the Royal Academy 

 of Agriculture in Sweden, of the Royal CEconomical So- 

 ciety of Saxony, of the Society of Agriculture and Botany 

 of Utrecht, Corresponding Member of the " Gonseil Royal 

 d' Agriculture de France,*' &c. &c.* 



When Julius Caesar landed amongst the Belgae on the 

 shores of Kent, about fifty -four years before our common era, 

 he found the natives possessed of horses, w^hich they used 

 for cavalry, or attached to chariots of war, after the manner 

 of the Assyrians, the Persians, and other people of the East 

 in the first ages, of the Egyptians in the remotest times, and 

 of the Greeks in the era termed heroic. The early use of 

 the horse, in a manner thus artificial, by nations so remote 

 from one another as the inhabitants of Celtic Britain and the 

 first civilized communities of the East, may be regarded as 

 one of the many proofs derived from history, from language, 

 and from similarity of customs, religious and social, of the 

 pristine relation between these early settlers of Europe and 

 the people of Western Asia, who used the same engine of 

 war. The most simple and natural manner of reducing the 

 horse to subjection, is by making him bear the burden of his 

 rider ; and it may be assumed that this was the method of 

 domestication which preceded that of attaching him to an 

 armed equipage, the construction of which infers a certain 

 advancement in the useful arts. It cannot be believed that 

 the scattered tribes which peopled Europe during the earlier 

 periods of colonization, had themselves devised a method of 

 using the horse so little suited to their wants, and to the 

 countries of marsh, forest, and mountain, over which they 

 were spread. It is more consonant with reasonable proba- 



* From Professor Low*s excellent work, just published, " On the Do- 

 mesticated Animals of the British Islands : comprehending the Natural 

 and Economical History of Species and Varieties ; the Description 

 of the Properties of External Form ; and Observations on the Prin- 

 ciples and Practice of Breeding," pp. 768, 8vo. London : Longman, 

 Brown, Green, and Longmans. 1845. 



