272 THE BLACK STOCK. 



able views, excepting at Naples, where the noble 

 breeds of ancient times, Saracen, Norman, Hunga- 

 rian, and Spanish, have gradually sunken almost to 

 a level with the rest, and furnishing now only a 

 few handsome carriage-horses. 



In France, where for ages horses do not seem to 

 have been an object of steady national attention, 

 they are never sufficiently abundant to mount the 

 regular force respectably; and although there are 

 real good horses in the kingdom, the provinces in 

 general are overrun with bidets or ponies, and 

 double bidets, galloways comparatively worthless : 

 the efforts of government, the formation of Haras, 

 and the liberal exertions of enlightened individuals, 

 seem to have kindled little more than a temporary 

 fashion for the display of equestrian paraphernalia 

 and the excitement of imitation races; while the 

 once vaunted breed of Limousin is all but extinct,* 

 and the more ancient Navarrese and Guienne steeds 

 are now without a representative worthy of the 

 name. Yet, for draught, there are, in Picardv, 

 horses very like the breed of Flanders, and there 

 are others of the stock in Brittany and Normandy ; 

 but that of Auvergne is perhaps the most ill-shaped 

 of the whole, though in many points resembling 

 the Francomptois, which is extensively employed 

 in the land-carriage trade. From these general cen- 



* We saw, some years ago, specimens of the restored race ; 

 they were black, tolerably well-shaped, but not improved by 

 foreign noble crosses ; their number was still confined within 

 the royal Haras. 



