26 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



periods very extenfive, his experience muff 

 have been greater, and more to be depended 

 upon, than that of any other man either before 

 or fince his time. His works firft came abroad 

 between the years 1720 and 1730, and con- 

 fided of his Farrier's Guide, in one volume; his 

 treatife on dieting Horfes, and his Farrier's Dif- 

 penfary. This laff, I have never yet had an 

 opportunity of feeing. An edition of his chief 

 work, The Farrier's Guide, he publifhed in the 

 year 1750, revifed by him for the laft time, 

 and enlarged to two volumes. His books are 

 written in a plain, unaffected, perfpicuous ftyle, 

 and evince him to have been a man of deep 

 reflection, of candour, and of a moil refpe£table 

 {hare of medical knowledge. His mind being 

 fo thoroughly replenifhed with his fubjecl, and 

 affecting utility in preference to the graces of 

 compolition, he is frequently too diffufe, fome- 

 times tedioufly prolix ; but fuch of his readers 

 as aim at folid information, rather than trifling 

 amufement, will on that head find little to 

 regret. He very freely acknowledged the 

 little he owed to preceding writers, which 

 chiefly confided in the names and catalogue of 

 difeafes. No author abounds fo much in 

 cautions againft the ignorant and temerarious 

 practice of farriers and grooms, more particu- 

 larly in the article of violent purges; and his 

 works are totally free from the barbarous ab- 



furdities 



