HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH HORSE. 53 



and, except when the snow renders it impossible for him to graze, he is, day 

 and night, exposed to the cold, and the wind, and the rain. We are no advocates 

 for a system of nursing laborious to the owner and injurious to the animal, but 

 a full development of form and of power can never be acquired amidst outrage- 

 ous neglect and privation. 



THE PRUSSIAN HORSE. 



Prussia has not been backward in the race of improvement or rather, with 

 her characteristic policy, she has taken the lead, where her influence and her 

 power were concerned. The government has established some extensive and 

 well-regulated studs in various parts of the kingdom ; and many of the Prus- 

 sian noblemen have establishments of their own. In some of the marshy districts, 

 and about the month of the Vistula, there is a breed of large and strong horses 

 suited to agricultural purposes. The studs produce others for pleasure or for 

 war. In the royal studs particular attention has been paid to the improve- 

 ment of the Prussian cavalry-horse. He has acquired considerably more fire 

 and spirit, and strength and endurance, without any sacrifice either of form 

 or action. 



THE FLEMISH AND DUTCH HORSE. 



The Flemish and Dutch horses are large, and strongly and beautifully 

 formed. We are indebted to them for some of the best blood of our draught- 

 horses, and we still have frequent recourse to them for keeping up and improv- 

 ing the breed. They will be more particularly described when the cart-horse 

 is spoken of. 



CHAPTER III. 



HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH HORSE. 



THE earliest record of the horse in Great Britain is contained in the history 

 given by Julius Caesar of his invasion of our island. The British army was 

 accompanied by numerous war-chariots, drawn by horses. Short scythes were 

 fastened to the ends of the axle-trees, sweeping down everything before them, 

 and carrying terror and devastation into the ranks of the enemy. The con- 

 queror gives an animated description of the dexterity with which these horses 

 were managed. 



What kind of horse the Britons then possessed, it would be useless to inquire; 

 but, from the cumbrous structure of the car, and the fury with which it was 

 driven, and the badness of the roads, and the almost non-existence of those that 

 were passable, it must have been both active and powerful in an extraordinary 

 degree. It is absurd to suppose, as some naturalists have done, that the ponies 

 of Cornwall and of Devon, or of Wales, or of Shetland, are types of what the 

 British horse was in early times. He was then as ever the creature of the 

 country in which he lived. With short fare and exposed to the rigour of the 

 seasons, he was probably the little hardy thing which we yet see him ; but in 

 the marshes of the Nen and the Witham, and on the borders of the Tees and 

 the Clyde, there would be as much proportionate development of frame and of 

 strength as we find at the present day. 



Caesar deemed these horses so valuable, that he carried many of them to 



