THE EARL OF PEMBROKE. ,507 



Horsemanship, published some years previously, writes : 

 ' Physic and a butteris, in well-informed hands, would not 

 be fatal ; but in the manner we are now provided with 

 farriers, they must be quite banished. Whoever at pre- 

 sent lets his farrier, groom, or coachman, in consideration 

 of his having swept dung out of the stables for a greater 

 or less number of years, ever even mention anything more 

 than water-gruel, a clyster, or a little bleeding, and that, 

 too, very seldom ; or pretend to talk of the nature of feet, 

 of the seat of lamenesses, sicknesses, or their cures, may 

 be certain to find himself very shortly quite on foot, and 

 fondly arms an absurd and inveterate enemy against his 

 own interest. It is incredible what tricking knaves most 

 stable-people are, and what daring attempts they will make 

 to gain an ascendant over their masters, in order to have 

 their own foolish projects complied with. In shoeing, for 

 example, I have more than once known that, for the sake 

 of establishing their own ridiculous and pernicious system, 

 when their masters have differed from it, they have, on 

 purpose, lamed horses, and imputed the fault to the shoes, 

 after having in vain tried, by every sort of invention and 

 lies, to discredit the use of them. How can the method 

 of such people be commendable, whose arguments, as well 

 as practice, are void of common sense ? If your horse's 

 foot be bad and brittle, they advise you to cover it with a 

 very heavy shoe ; the consequence of which proceeding is 

 evident : for how should the foot, which before could scarce 

 carry itself, be able afterwards to carry such an additional 

 weight, which is stuck on, moreover, with a multitude of 

 nails, the holes of which tear and weaken the hoof ? The 

 only system all these simpletons seem to agree in, is to shoe 



