20 THE HORSE. 



And its voice to the flowers that bend above, 



Is soft ns the whisper oi'ijarly love ; 



V.'ith IrajTraru-e sprii;:^ flowerb- liave burdened the air. 



And iho blue-Ujrd ana robin arc twiiteriiig clear. 



Lovely tokens of gladness. I marked ye not. 

 When last 1 roamed o'er this self-same spot. 

 Ah ! then the deep shadows of sorrow'.^ mien 

 Fell, like a blight, on the happy scene ; 

 And nature, iviili all her love and grace, 

 In the depths of the spirit could find no place. 



So the vexed breast of the mountain lake, 

 When wind and rain mad revelry make, 

 Turbid and gloomy, and wildly tost. 

 Retains no trace of the beauty lost. 

 But when through the moist air, bright and warry. 

 The sun looks down with his golden charm. 

 And clouds have fled, and the wind is lull, 

 Oh ! then the changed lake, how beauiiiui ! 



The glistening trees, in their shady ranks. 



And the ewe wiih its lamb, along the banks. 



And the kingfisher perched on the v.iiher'd bough, 



And the pure blue heaven, all pictured below I 



Bound proudly my steed, nor bound proudly in vam, 



Since thy master is now himself again. 



And thine be the praise when the leech's* power 



Is idle, to conquer the darkened hour 



By the might of the sounding hoof, to win 



Beauty without and joy within; 



Beauty else to my eyes unseen. 



And joy, that then had a stranger been. 



We return without further preliminarj'^ to trace tlie progressive improvements which 

 have ended in giving- us the horse nf all vjork of the present day, ar,d as now employed 

 for ordinary uses. 'These uses require hardiness 2rid strength for economical and 

 laborious drudgery, and activity^ and speed f'cr light harness and the saddle ; while 

 for every purpose it is essential that he should have gooof wind. The work itself, to 

 which these remarks are but introductory, it will be remembered treats more par- 

 ticularly and fully, and leaves nothing more to be learned about the anatomy aiid 

 diseases of ike Horse. How the qualities designated above have been gradually estab- 

 lished and preserved from deterioration, it would be imjjracticable to ascertain and 

 relate without going back as we propose to trace the outline at least of the history of 

 the English Horse, from which ours are descended — and here, before proceeding 

 further, it is deemed proper the better to indicate its importance to every practical 

 husbandman, that we lay it down as a principle, that the horse, in his domesticated 

 condition, where his propagation is conducted arbitrarily and without rule — whore the 

 male and female are brought together capriciously, and without care or judgment as 

 to the qualities of each, constant and wide-spread dtterioration niusi be the conseqvenct. 

 On this point, upon which we insist as of the highest consideration, we shall dwell 

 again, to show why it is that animals in a state of nature will preserve a higher 

 standard than when unskilfully and carchssly bred in a slate of domesti- 

 cation. In the meantime, in sketching the history of the English horse, it is not 

 deemed essential to go back anterior to the Invasion of England by Julius Ca;sar, 

 Even at that period it is clear that there existed in that island a good substratum u.t 

 forming a superior race, for that observant and accomplished warrior spoke in the 

 highest terms of the iiorses he found there. So well w^as he ccnvincfd of their excel- 

 lence, that he took back with him many of them to Home, where English horses soon 

 grew into great demand; and thus early was an inducement offered to the hardy and 

 enterprising I'ritou, which since tluni bus suffen^d no abatement, to pay .strict atten- 

 tion to this important source of agricultural wealth. 



* Tieech, in old poetic dialect, means physician. 



