52 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 



lowest class, of the name of Sullivan, but better 

 known by the appellation of the Whisperer. His 

 occupation was horse-breaking. The nickname he 

 acquired from the vulgar notion of his being able to 

 communicate to the animal what he wished by means 

 of a whisper; and the singularity of his method 

 seemed in some degree to justify the supposition. 

 How his art was acquired, or in what it consisted, he 

 never disclosed. He died about 1810. His son, who 

 followed him in the same trade, possessed but a small 

 portion of the art, having either never learned the true 

 secret, or being incapable of putting it into practice. 

 The wonder of his skill consisted in the celerity of the 

 operation, which was performed in privacy, without 

 any apparent means of coercion : every description 

 of horse or even mule, whether previously broken or 

 unhandled, whatever their peculiar habits or vices 

 might have been, submitted withbut a show of resist- 

 ance to his magical influence, and in the short space 

 of an hour became gentle and tractable. This effect, 

 though instantaneously produced, was generally du- 

 rable. Though more submissive to him than to 

 others, the animals seemed to have acquired a docility 

 unknown before. 



When sent for to tame a vicious beast, for whicli 

 he was either paid according to the distance, or gene- 

 rally two or three guineas, he directed the stable, in 

 which he and the object of the experiment were, to 



