C4 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH HOKSE. 



THE FLEMISH AND DUTCH HORSE. 



The Flemish and Didch horses are large, and are strongly foiTTLed. 

 We are indebted to them for some of the best blood of our di-aught-horses, 

 and we still have frequent recourse to them for keeping up and im- 

 proving the breed. They will be more particularly described when the 

 cart-horse is spoken of. 



CHAPTER III. 



HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH HORSE. 



The earliest record of the horse in Great Britain is contained in the 

 history given by Julius Caesar of his invasion of our island. The British 

 army was accompanied by numerous war-chariots, drawn by horses. Short 

 scythes wei'e fastened to the ends of the axle-trees, sweeping dowTi every- 

 thing before them, and carrying terror and devastation into the ranks of 

 the enemy. The conqueror gives an animated description of the dexterity 

 with which these horses were managed. 



What kind of horse the Britons then possessed, it would be useless to 

 inquire ; but, from the cumbrous structure of the car, and the fary -with 

 which, it was driven, and the badness of the roads, and the almost non- 

 existence of those that were passable, it must have been both active and 

 powerful in an extraordinary degree. It is absurd to suppose, as some 

 naturalists have done, that the ponies of Cornwall and of Devon, or of 

 Wales, or of Shetland, are types of what the British horse was in early 

 times. He was then as ever the creature of the country in which he lived. 

 With short fare and exposed to the rigoui" of the seasons, he was probably 

 the little hardy tiling which we yet see him ; but in the marshes of the 

 Nen and the Witliam, and on the borders of the Tees and the Clyde, there 

 would be as much proportionate development of frame and of strength as 

 we find at the present day. 



Cassar deemed these horses so valuable, that he carried many of them to 

 "Rome ; and they were, for a considerable period afterwards, in great request 

 in vai'ious parts of the Roman empire. 



Horses must at that time have been exceedingly numerous in Britain, 

 for we are told that when the Biitish king, Cassivellaunus, dismissed 

 the main body of his army, he retained four thousand of his war- 

 chariots for the purpose of harassing the Romans, when they attempted to 

 forage. 



The British horse now received its first cross ; but whether the breed 

 was thereby improved cannot be ascertained. The Romans having estab- 

 Hshed themselves in Britain, found it necessary to send over a numerous 

 body of cavalry, in order effectually to check the frequent insurrections of 

 the natives. The Roman horses would breed -with those of the country 

 and, to a greater or less extent, change their character ; and from this 

 time, the English horse would consist of a compound of the native animal 

 and those from Gaul, Italy, Spain, and every province from which the 

 Roman cavalry was suppUed. 



Many centuries afterwards passed by "ndthout leaving any record of the 

 character or value, improvement or deterioration, of the horse. About the 

 3'ear 630, however, according to Bede, the English were accustomed to 



