PREFACE. 



The reader, after having perused the present volume, 

 may imagine the writer should have been more explicit 

 when advertising the book's intentions, that a mass of 

 speculative novelty should not have been hastily intruded 

 upon the general public. Such, probably, will be the pri- 

 mary impression of most purchasers. The author, how- 

 ever, regrets he is by truth obliged to decline the compli- 

 ment embodied in such a complaint. Those notions which, 

 hurriedly regarded, appear as original, will, to the matured 

 judgment, show only as an obvious result, worked out by 

 the easy application of a single idea. Common sense em- 

 braces every merit in the ensuing pages. Grant this, and 

 there remains no loftier claim to advance. The different 

 chapters contain nothing which is not very superficial and 

 entirely based upon fact. Every statement included in the 

 following articles becomes plain and self-evident to the man 

 who can release his mind from the trammels of conven- 

 tionality, and will allow his conceptions to be shaped by 

 the habits and the inclinations which are natural to the 

 equine species. 



No living creature could be more exposed to the willful- 

 ness of perversity than the horse has hitherto been. All 



(V) 



