302 The Poets Beasts, 



was a far better sportsman than he was a poet. For tV 

 utter humUiation of the noble brute read Eliza Cook. 



The race-horse finds but few friends among the poet 

 They see only the cruelty of the sport. The jockeys a 

 " murderers," and the animals come in with " rivers ' 

 sweat and blood flowing from gored sides." They admi 

 the animal ''with his nostrils thin, blown abroad by tl 

 pride within," but they avoid it. 



The war-horse finds more frequent and appreciati'' 

 reference, but the poets cannot shake Job off. The fe 

 lines of the Patriarch's poem stretch farther than all the 

 laboured eulogies, just as the staff of Moses reached farth 

 than the linked sceptres of all the Kings of Edom. 

 neighs and paws and snorts, but it gets no further, after a 

 than the 25th verse of the 39th chapter of the Book of Jo 

 " Taboring the ground " is, however, an excellent conce 

 of Quarles, and shows an unusual judgment in plagiari 

 ing. 



The poet's cart-horse is a most dismal creation. N' 

 long ago cruelty to animals was much more prevalent th£ 

 it is now — thanks to a society that has the eyes of Argu 

 the funds of Croesus, and the sympathy of the country- 

 and from Chaucer to Wordsworth the draught-horse is 

 miserable brute, habitually ill-treated, and dying from cru 

 over-work. It is "as lene as is a rake " (Chaucer); "2 

 bones and leather " (Butler) ; " a wretched unlucky corse 

 (Ramsay); "toil-worn" in Grahame, who seems to ha: 

 had an exceptionally bad opinion of Scotch treatment 1 

 horses. Cowper implores the carter to spare his " po( 

 beasts ; " Wordsworth beseeches the waggoner to be mini 

 ful of his responsibilities. Both these poets, however, p£ 

 a tribute of respect to the draught-horse's willingness, whi 

 those who know him better — Hurdis, Clare, and Bloor 

 field, for instance — admire it, " patient of the slow-pace 

 swain's delay ; " or as 



