HORSE. 



the energies of his character, are displayed. The wild 

 horses of Arabia have been long celebrated throughout 

 the world as the most elegant, the most generous, swift, 

 and persevering of the kind ; and the natives employ 

 every stratagem to secure them. They are rather smaller 

 than those which are bred up tame ; their colour is brown, 

 their manes and tails are very short, and the hair black 

 and tufted. A stranger can form no adequate idea of 

 their fleetness ; and the value set upon them, not only by 

 the natives but the princes and grandees of Europe, has 

 gradually thinned the numbers of those in a state of liberty 

 and independence, and probably will in time extinguish 

 the race. 



After the Arab, the Barb, which is sprung from the 

 same stock, is most esteemed, and the Spanish genette 

 ranks next in order. Every country of Europe has been 

 at abundant pains to cultivate the breed of horses, but 

 England has succeeded most in those destined for the 

 chace, for labour, for war, or the race. The latter, con- 

 sidered abstractedly, is, perhaps, the most useless of the 

 kind, and least deserving the encouragement of a people, 

 who consider morals as far superior to tasteless and ex- 

 pensive amusement. 



In this country, indeed, horses are multiplied to such a 

 degree, that they are become almost a nuisance, rather 

 than a blessing. The numbers of those kept for pleasure 

 or parade consume such a portion of the produce of the 

 land, as to be a serious national injury. Their use is not 

 confined, as formerly, to the man of fortune, the farmer, 

 the inn-keeper, the coach-master, and the carrier ; but 

 every petty tradesman is now fired with the ambition of 

 keeping one or more, at an expense hurtful alike to him- 

 self and to the community. History relates, however, 

 that in the reign of queen Elizabeth, the whole kingdom 

 of England could not supply two thousand horses for 

 raising a body of cavalry. How much is the case altered 

 now ? and what consequences have arisen to the poor from 

 the change? Even the tax laid on horses, the most politic 



