iz THE HISTORY AND ART 



lived ; nor is it to be forgot, that he lived in a country 

 diftinguillied above others for its horfcs, and in which 

 no chariot was ever known to have been iifed. Nor 

 mull wc pafs by unremembered the noble defcription 

 which he gives of the horfe, fo known and fo ad- 

 mired *, in which he fpeaks of him only as being 

 rode, and not driven in a carriage ; and if there is 

 proper foundation for the opinion maintained by fome 

 learned perfons, that this celebrated patriarch lived long 

 before the time of Mofes ; it will follow, that what 

 he fays relative to our fubje<ft, muft be anterior to the 

 Mofaic hiftoryj and if fo, it will carry the antiquity 

 of equitation fo htgh, as to put it out of fight, and 

 beyond the reach of enquiry and inveftigation. 



Afia and Africa being the divifions of the earth 

 which were firft peopled and cultivated, as likewife 

 regions of which the horfe was a native, the art of 



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

 horfe, it Ihould be remarked, that the Englijh tranjlators make Job fay, 

 " that this animal's neck is clothed with thunder j" an expreffion as 

 falfe as it is abfurd. The true rendering of this paflage is, that his 

 neck is clothed ^ith a mane; thus Bochart, Le Clerc, Patrick^ and 

 other commentators tranflate it. — Bochart fays, that the word, which 

 in Hebrew fignifies thunder^ is fynonimous for the mane of an horfe ; 

 but this being fo, it is aftonifliing that the tranflator fhould have fet 

 afide thejuft and natural fignification, and have chofen to cover the 

 horfe's neck with thunder inftead of a mane\ nor is it lefs amazing that 

 this nonfenfe fhould have been extolled by the author of the Guardian *, 

 and others, as an inftance of thejiMme. 



* Vide Guardian,, vol. II. page 26. 



taming 



