CART HORSES. 215 



horses are now raised more numerously than cart 

 horses in the shires, and hence the term " shire 

 horse " is inaccurate, as well as somewhat vague. 

 The old black cart horse, or shire horse, is now most 

 nearly represented by the black horse of Lincolnshire. 

 One hesitates to conclude that the beautiful, high- 

 mettled charger of the Middle Ages, as he has been 

 described by poets and romancers, was really a dull, 

 ngly beast, with " misshapen legs," and " a great 

 fiddle-case in place of a head." Was it such a steed 

 that carried the Disinherited Knight in his encounter 

 with Brian de Bois G-uilbert ? Sir Walter Scott re- 

 lates, that " the trumpets had no sooner given the 

 signal than the champions vanished from their posts 

 with the speed of lightning, and closed in the centre 

 of the lists with the shock of a thunderbolt " ; and 

 the charger of the Disinherited Knight is described 

 as " wheeling with the agility of a hawk upon the 

 wang." It is possible that the English shire horse, 

 or war horse, was improved by crosses of Arab blood, 

 for Arab horses might have been brought into Eng- 

 land at the time of the Crusades. Isaac of York, it 

 will be remembered, supplied Ivanhoe with the horse 

 and armor which he used when he overthrew Brian 

 de Bois Guilbert, and awarded the crown of beauty to 

 Kowena; and the thrifty Jew exclaimed to Rebecca, 

 as they gazed upon the conflict, " Ah, the good horse 

 that was brought all the long way from Barbary. he 

 takes no more care of him than if he were a wild 

 ass's colt ! " In this, however, Isaac of York must 

 have been misreported by Sir Walter. Xo Barbary 

 horse or Eastern horse of any description was ever 

 big or strong enough to carry a knight in armor, 



