XII. 

 SOME POETS' HORSES. 



It is curious that poets should see so little of the natural 

 animal in the horse. As a beast, a quadruped, they 

 absolutely ignore it. It is only in its artificial varieties 

 that they recognise it at all, and even then so seldom as 

 to surprise the student of their pages. About the horse 

 particular, individual steeds of fame, a volume might easily 

 be gathered from our poets. But of the creature in Nature 

 they say nothing. The beast has become so thoroughly 

 relative that it has lost all individuality. It is either the 

 other half of a cavalier, a warrior, a war-chariot, a plough, 

 a coach, or a cart, or something else, that it cannot be 

 contemplated apart from its rider, its accoutrements, or the 

 vehicle it draws. Ail other animals have characters of their 

 own. The horse has none. It varies only according to the 

 kind of man on its back or the kind of thing behind it 

 Attach a plough to it, and it becomes at once " hea\'y " and 

 "dull;" set a soldier upon it, and it is "fiery" and 

 " proud." When ladies ride, their horses turn to " milk- 

 white palfreys ; " the hero of a poem, whether knight or 

 highwayman, bestrides, as a rule, a " courser." There are 

 also "swift-heeled Arabians," and "barbs," and "jennets;" 

 but these are not meant for real horses. 



There is, of course, nothing surprising in the fact that 

 poets have but little in sympathy with stable-boys or book- 



