SHOEING. 135 



to prevent the ill effect of literary imposition, 

 or misrepresentation, upon the creduHty and 

 inexperienced judgment of individuals ; who 

 are in general, particularly the uncultivated 

 classes (by far the most numerous), disposed 

 to believe everv thincf sanctioned with the 

 authority of the press ; and the name of the 

 printer beai's the incontrovertible stamp of 

 infallibility. Under the influence of this re- 

 flection, and to prove the strict justice of the 

 assertion, it becomes directly in point to state 

 such inconsistencies as evidently arise in re- 

 trospection. A writer of the present day 

 confidently tells us in his title-page, he is 

 '^^ ah experienced farrier of fifty years prac- 

 tice/* and promises (according to custom) 

 a great deal more information and instruc- 

 tion than lie ever condescended to perform. 

 He then leads you through two hundred 

 pages of dull, uninteresting, anatomical de- 

 scriptive, obliquely copied from the elabo- 

 rate work of Gibson ; interlards the remam- 

 ing liundred-and-seventy pages with the al- 

 most obsolete prescriptive parts of the an- 

 -i^ient System of Farriery (slightly varied to 

 vevade the charge of direct plagiarism), with- 



