314 A GENIUS. 



to rich dishes and a bottle of wine a day would cer- 

 tainly find his animal spirits much lowered if he was kept 

 for a week on tea and bread and butter ; still it could 

 not be called suffering. Even in the common circum- 

 stance of breaking a horse to harness, if he was very 

 high in condition and we found him jumping and 

 kicking at every thing he met, before putting him in 

 harness the judicious thing would be to stop his oats, 

 keep him on bran mashes for two or three days, give 

 him a dose of physic, and, while thus lowered in tem- 

 perament, give him his first lesson. If this was 

 oftener done than it is, a great deal of trouble would 

 be saved, and much risk avoided both in respect to the 

 animal and those about him. 



Great as is the difference of tempers in horses, the 

 difference between them in point of intellect is to the 

 full as much. I in no way exceed the fact when I say 

 that some horses can be taught that in ten days which 

 it would require ten weeks to teach others : some have 

 a peculiar capacity for learning, while others have 

 merely the ordinary instinct of the brute, nor can they 

 learn any thing beyond what the common impulses of 

 nature prompt them to do. 



Astley had a piebald mare in whom the capacity 

 for learning was exemplified in a most extraordinary 

 degree. He was so well aware of this, that whenever 

 any trick or act most difficult to teach a horse had to 

 be taught, the mare was always selected for the pur- 

 pose. From first coming into his possession she had 

 always shown this extraordinary aptness ; but from 

 having learned so many things this gift was increased 

 to a degree that could not be conceived by any one 

 but those in the habit of instructing her. She knew 

 as well when any thing new was wanted of her as the 



