4 THE IIOKSE. 



and the most glorious to their oavr gallant country- 

 men. 



As, in the scale of excellence, the horse ranks 

 first of all animals coming under the denomina- 

 tion of cattle, and, as Buffon justly says of him, 

 " possesses, along with grandeur of stature, the 

 gTeatest elegance and proportion of parts of all 

 quadrupeds,'" it is not a matter of surprise, that, as 

 an image of motive vigour, he should have been the 

 subject of the chisel and the pencil of the first 

 artists in the world, or that the description of him 

 by the pen should have been not considered as 

 unworthy the greatest writers of antiquity. But 

 it is in his native simplicity, in those wild and 

 extensive plains where he was originally produced 

 — where he ranges without control, and riots in all 

 the variety of luxurious nature — that we can form 

 an adequate idea of this noble animal. It is here 

 that he disdains the assistance of man, which only 

 tends to servitude ; and it is to a description of his 

 release from this servitude, his regaining his natural 

 liberty, that we are indebted for two of the finest 

 similes of the immortal Greek and Roman epic 

 bards. The return of Paris, with Hector, to the 

 battle of Troy, is thus given in the sixth book of 

 the Iliad :— 



" 'fij B' on Ti: ffTxro; 'I'T'z'o;, axoa-'ryiffa; It) (pdrvr, 



TJuSu; Xoviffdat iV^oiTo; Toraf/.oTo, 

 Kv^iouV v-4'ov Ti Kag'A £;^£i, ot,[ji.(^\ dj ^cuTcti 



'P/«(p« I youva. (p'i^ii f/.iTa, t' ^&ia, kx) vof/.ov 'ittmv."' 



And Virgil is considered to have even exceeded 



