350 WISCONSIN AGRICULTUEE. 



recreation, at once gentle, lively and secure. In war he snuffs 

 tlie battle tainted breeze from afar, and "His neck with thunder 

 clc»thed and long-i-esounding pace," he rushes with almost Imman 

 knowledge, and often with more than human tlaring, to where 

 the fight rages the thickest, courting the danger that meets him, 

 and minghng the terrible music of his voice with the noise and 

 sljock of the contending host. The favorite steeds of the great- 

 est conquerers have come down to us borne on the same breath 

 of fame. The ancient mythology endowed him with wings and 

 made him the means by which the poet was conveyed on the 

 loftiest flights of his sublime muse. Pegasus, the steed of the 

 poetic muse, is handed down to us in the same legends that 

 made Parnassus its chosen seat, and Helicon the sacred waters 

 in which it bathed. So closely were the first civilized soldiers 

 of Greece identified by fear and superstition with the coursers 

 which they bestrode, that they were deemed the same terrific 

 being, and the Centaur comes pictured to us, with the body of 

 tin.' horse, presenting in front a gigantic human head and breast. 

 One of the most delightful examples of all-sacrificing patriotism 

 — of self-denial that laid down life itself on the altar of his coun- 

 try, was that of Marcus Curtius, who rode his gallant steed into a 

 pi-epared pile where they died together, in obedience to the 

 oracle which demanded his destruction as the price of his 

 count: y's safety. With the devotion that would not in death 

 be seuarated from the fiiend and master of his life, the gallant 

 steed needed neither whip nor spur — nothing but the guidance 

 of the patriot's voice and rein — to plunge into certain destruction. 

 The Hindoo widow, who immolates herself upon the burning 

 pile that consumes the last remains of the man she loved, is 

 scarcely more instructive with its lesson of rare and noble virtue 

 than the horse of Marcus Curtius. 



Caligula, in the wantonness of his tyranny and caprice, set up 

 his favorite horse in the Eoman Capitol, crowned him with his 

 own imperial coronet, and demanded for him the same honors 

 that were paid himself. The voice of histi )ry proclaims that the 

 noble steed was far more worthy of such homage than the cruel 

 and bloody tyrant whom he served. 



