2 HISTORY OF THE 



adorn their works ; and we cannot do better 

 than give the following pre-eminently poetical 

 description of this noble animal in his compara- 

 tively wild state, as an introduction to the his- 

 tory of his highest cultivated excellence. The 

 earliest passage we meet with in the works of 

 the writers of antiquity, in which the horse is 

 brought forward with the fire of inspired genius, 

 we find in the 39th chapter, and from the 19th 

 to the 25th verse, of the Book of Job. It is 

 in the following words : 



'' Hast thou given the horse strength ? Hast 

 thou clothed his neck with thunder ?^ 



*' Canst thou make him afraid as a grass- 

 hopper ? The glory of his nostrils is terrible. 



* We find the following' note in Berenger's Horsemanship, vol.i. 

 p. 12. on the use of the word thunder in the above quotation. 



*' In this enumeration of the beauties and noble qualities of the 



horse, it should be remarked that the English translators make Job 



say that the animal's neck is clothed with thunder, an expression 



as false as it is absurd. The true rendering of this passage is, 



that his neck is clothed with a mane; thus Bochart, Le Clerc 



Patrick, and other commentators translate it. Bochart says that 



the word which in Hebrew signifies thunder is synonimous for 



the mane of a horse ; but this being so, it is astonishing that the 



translator should have set aside the just and natural signification, 



and have chosen to cover the horse's neck with thunder instead of 



a mane; nor is it less amazing that this nonsense should have been 



extolled by the author of the Guardian, [Guardian, vol. ii. p. 26.] 



and others as an instance of the subhrae." 



