80 HINTS ON HORSEMANSHIP. 



neither anger nor surprise at his struggles and alarm; and, 

 indeed, would he not be very unreasonable were he to chastise 

 the poor animal on account of them ? But there is no more 

 reason in nature why a horse should submit, without resistance, 

 to be ridden, than the stag to be slain ; why the horse should 

 give up his liberty to us, than the stag his life. In both 

 these cases our " wish is father to the deed ;" and if our arro- 

 gance insinuates that a bountiful nature created these animals 

 for our service, assuredly bountiful nature left them in igno- 

 rance of the fact. And it is to the sportsman and the colt- 

 breaker that we must apply, if we wish to know whose victims 

 are the most willing ; not to the cockney casuist, whose know- 

 ledge of the stag is confined to his venison, and who never 

 trusts himself on the horse, till it has been "long trained 

 in shackles to procession pace/ 1 If he did, he would find 

 that the unfettered four-year-old shows the same alarm and 

 resistance to the halter as the stag to the toils. And, in 

 breaking horses, the thing to be aimed at, next to the power 



