THE HORSE. 69 



compulsion in his shoeing system, which in all defec- 

 tive frogs must necessarily overstrain, instead of sup- 

 port, the tendon. With frogs, bars and heels, of 

 sufficient toughness and luxuriance of produce, the 

 half-moon shoe is yet superior to all others. Saintbel, 

 unable duly to appreciate and divest his mind of 

 La Fosse's theory, unskilled in English horseman- 

 ship, and uninformed how completely and practically 

 we had exploded the system, revived it here with the 

 original success. Professor Coleman, somewhat en- 

 lightened by these failures, but not discouraged, and 

 having a glimmering of the effigies of old daddy 

 La Fosse, on the tip of his glandula pineaHs, came to 

 the fortunate conclusion that nature, as well as him- 

 self, had decided the frog must receive pressure. In 

 consequence he patenteed an artificial iron frog to 

 give it pressure. Nature, however, rejected the co- 

 partnership ; the patent frog, after paying its way for 

 a considerable season, at length became bankrupt, 

 and rests in the eternal sleep of death, in the vault, of 

 all the Capulets of farriery. To overlook fancies of 

 minor consequence, at the indication of needful bre- 

 vitv — enter the now fashionable theory of ex pan- 

 sion, swelling in all the pride, pomp, and circum- 

 stance of glorious horse shoeing ! This theory, it 

 seems, would fain command the hoof to expand, 

 although fast bound, as it were by fate, in an im- 

 passable limit of iron, secured by iron nails. The 

 impossibility of such expansion, however, is acknow- 

 ledged, and the learned of the faculty are yet of the 

 sect of the seekers; unless, fortunately, the jointed 

 shoe should convert them into finders. But it would 



