20 THE HORSE. 



A.nd its voice to the flowers that bend above, 



Is soft as the whisper of early love ; 



With fragrance spring flowers have burdened the air, 



And the blue-bird and robin are twittering clear. 



Lovely tokens of gladness, I marked ye not, 

 When last I roamed o'er this self-same spot. 

 Ah ! then the deep shadows of sorrow's mien 

 Feil, like a blight, on the happy scene ; 

 And nature, with all her love and grace, 

 tn the depths of the spirit could find no place. 



So the vexed breast of the mountain lake, 

 When wind and rain mad revelry make, 

 Turbid and gloomy, and wildly tost, 

 Retains no trace of the beauty lost. 

 But when through the moist air, bright and warm, 

 The sun looks down with his golden charm, 

 And clouds have fled, and the wind is lull, 

 Oh ! then the changed lake, how beautiful ! 



The glistening trees, in their shady ranks, 



And the ewe with its lamb, along the banks, 



And the kingfisher perched on the wither'd bough, 



And the pure blue heaven, all pictured below ! 



Bound proudly my steed, nor bound proudly in vain 



Since thy master is now himself again. 



And thine be the praise when the leech's* power 



Is idle, to conquer the darkened hour 



By the might of the sounding hoof, to win 



Beauty without and joy within ; 



Beauty else to my eyes unseen, 



And joy, that then had a stranger been. 



We return without further preliminary to trace the progressive improvements which 

 nave ended in giving us the horse of all work of the present day, and as now employed 

 for ordinary uses. These uses require hardiness and strength for economical ami 

 laborious drudgery, and activity and speed for light harness and the saddle ; while 

 for every purpose it is essential that he should have good wind. The work itself, to 

 which these remarks are but introductory, it will be remembered treats more par- 

 ticularly and fully, and leaves nothing more to be learned about the anatomy and 

 diseases of the Horse. How the qualities designated above hale been gradually estab- 

 lished and preserved from deterioration, it would be impracticable to ascertain and 

 relate without going back as we propose to trace the outline at least of the history of 

 the English Horse, from which ours are descended and here, before proceeding 

 further, it is deemed proper the better to indicate its importance to every practical 

 husbandman, that we lay it down as a principle, that the horse, in his domesticated 

 condition, where his propagation is conducted arbitrarily and without rule where the 

 male and female are brought together capriciously, and without care or judgment as 

 to the qualities of each, constant and wide-spread deterioration must be the consequence. 

 On this point, upon which we insist as of the highest consideration, we shall dwell 

 again, to show why it is that animals in a state of nature will pieserve a higher 

 standard than when unskilfully and carelessly bred in a state of domesti- 

 cation. In the meantime, in sketching the history of the English horse, it is not 

 deemed essential to go back anterior to the Invasion of England by Julias Caesar. 

 Even at that period it is clear that there existed in that 'sland a good substratum for 

 forming a superior race, for that observant and accomplished warrior spoke in the 

 highest terms of the horses he found there. So well was he convinced of their excel- 

 lence, that he took back with him many of them to Rome, where English horsos soon 

 grew into great demand; and thus early was an inducement offered to the haidy and 

 enterprising Briton, which since then has suffered no abatement, to pay strict atten- 

 tion to this important source of agricultural wealth. 



* Lecb 'n old poetic dialect, means pkysician. 



