52 FEATS OF STRENGTH ACQUIRED BY PRACTICE. 



or gallop can carry weight. I never saw even one 

 that could. If any person doubts this, I can assure 

 him the horse will not (after he has carried weight 

 a few times), and will be found very shortly to 

 alter his gait. Desire a man to walk fifty yards, and 

 observe his way of walking ; then clap a sack of oats 

 on his back ; I will answer for his taking three steps 

 where before he only took two. So it is with a horse : 

 with 8st. on him he walks lazily and loungingly along ; 

 he can do so ; put 18st. on him, he, like the man, will 

 shorten his steps, and will make fewer blunders in con- 

 sequence of so doing. He must do the same thing in 

 his gallop before he can live under great weight ; he 

 has sense enough to learn this and many other ways 

 of saving himself, and this is the great reason why, 

 when put to carry weight, he does it better the second 

 season than the first. If I had a hack that was clever 

 in every way but in taking long strides in his walk, 

 I would lend him to an 18st. man. I will answer for 

 it he cures him of that fault at all events. 



It is self-evident that physical strength is necessary 

 to carry great burthens ; but there is also (if I may 

 be allowed the term) a certain knack in doing it. A 

 smith, as I have said, acquires the arm of a Hercules, 

 and can wield his enormous hammer for hours in a 

 day. A miller's man could not do this, or anything 

 bordering on it ; but he will chuck a sack of flour 

 about, and carry it a distance, that would make our 

 son of Vulcan's loins and shoulders crack again, 

 though the latter might be the bigger and in a general 

 way the stronger man ; but he has not learned 1 o 

 carry sacks of flour on his shoulders, and till he has 

 the little one will beat him at that particular game. 

 A machiner that in point of strength is (in road 



