The Changes in Horse Tails. 251 



then look to their shapes and colours. Observe that your coach-horses be all of one colour, 

 without diversitie, and that their marks be also alike ; thus, for example, if one have white 

 starre-bald face, white foot, or be of pide (pied) colour, that then the other have like also. 



" For their shapes you shall chose a lean-proportioned head, a strong firm neck, a full, 

 broad, and round breast, a limbe flat, short-jointed, lean and well hayred, a good bending 

 ribbe, a strong backe, and a round buttocke. Generally they should be of broad strong making 

 and of the tallest stature ; for such are most serviceable for the draught, and best able to 

 endure the toyle of deepe travell, 



" Now for the properties. They must be as nearly alyed in nature and disposition as in 

 colour, shape, and height ; for if one be free and the other dull, then the free horse taking all 

 the labour must necessarily over-toyle himself, and soon destroy both his life and courage . 

 so they must be of like spirit and metall. Also you must have special regard that their paces 

 be alike, and that the one neither trot faster than the other nor take longer strides than the 

 other, for if their feet do not rise from the ground together, there can be no equality in their 

 draught, but one must over-toyle the other ; whereas they ought to be of such equall strength, 

 pace, and spirits, that, as if they were one body, their labour should be divided equally 

 amongst them. 



" They ought also, as neare as you can, to be of a loving, tractable, and mild disposition. 



" They should also have good and tender mouths, and ought to have their heads well settled 

 upon the bit before they come into the coach, being learnt to turn readily upon either hand 

 without discontentment or rebellion, to stoppe close and firm, and to retyre back freely with 

 good spirit and courage — which are lessons fully sufficient to make a good coach-horse. 



" I advise all that are desirous to better their judgment in such knowledge, to repair to 

 the stables of great princes, where commonly are the bell-men of this art, and there behold 

 how everything in his true proportion is ordered, and thence draw unto himself rules for his 

 own instruction. 



" This slight precept I will bestow upon him — that he have a constant sweete hand upon 

 his horse's mouth, by no means losing the feeling thereof, but observing that the horse does 

 rest upon his bit and carry his head and rein in a good and comely fashion ; for to goe with 

 his head loose, or to have no feeling of the bit, is both uncomely to the eye and takes from 

 the horse all delight in his labour." 



The English coach-horse's tail has been subjected to curious changes of fashion since 

 the time of Gervase Markham. He then wore a long tail flowing down to the ground, and 

 cut square, like King Charles's charger at Charing Cross. It was adorned with ribbons on 

 gala days, and strapped up in a leather case in winter weather ; thus a certain harmony was 

 preserved between the wig of the master and the tails of his horses. By the time of George II. 

 a short wig and a pig-tail had taken the place of the flowing curls in which the Cavaliers of 

 Charles I. and the rakes of Charles II.'s court delighted. The brilliant idea occurred to Lord 

 Cadogan, a cavalry officer of that period, of reducing the tails of his dragoon horses to a 

 short dock — whether this was with the view of saving his soldiers the trouble of cleaning those 

 long tails, and avoiding the nuisance of the splashes uniforms and accoutrements must have 

 received from such hair streamers, or whether the debased taste of the age made him really 

 think the appearance of his regiment improved by bobtails, history does not relate — the next 

 step was to turn bobtails into plug-tails, by cutting all the hair for the last two or three 

 inches of the dock. Having thus succeeded in disfiguring the hind-quarters of dragoon horses 

 to the utmost, some monster devised the additional barbarity of cropping their ears. The 



