ANTIQUITY OF THE TRAFFIC. 477 



in which he was favoured by having married a 

 daughter of Pharaoh, and therefore enabled to have 

 the picking of Egypt for those of the best form ; 

 which circumstance, together with the well known 

 rapidity with which a stud of horses multiply, ac- 

 counts for the immense extent of the royal stables, 

 and the splendid array of horsemen that turned out 

 of them. It would, however, be very interesting to 

 us to be informed in what way this traffic was 

 conducted, generally, in the early ages of the world ; 

 whether the cheating, the tricks, and the frauds, 

 now in practice, and so often successful, among the 

 lower orders of horse-dealers, were resorted to then ; 

 and whether, amongst those of a higher grade, the 

 wholesome precaution of " caveat emptor ^^"^ — *' let 

 the buyer beware," was as necessary as it is at pre- 

 sent. We know, from the history of our own 

 country, that cheating in horse-flesh was carried to 

 such an extent during the reign of Richard the 

 Second, that in 1386, a statute was passed regu- 

 lating the price of all horses, and which statute 

 was proclaimed in the chief breeding counties of 

 England. But, according to Pomponius (Digest. 

 1. 4. tit. 4. 16,) the law of nature allows of over- 

 reaching in buying and selling — (what a good 

 father-confessor this Pomponius would have made 

 to some of our modern horse-dealers ;) — and Eras- 

 mus appears nearly to sanction a license to horse- 

 dealers in these words : — " Scis quanta impostura 

 sit, apud nos, in his qui vendunt equos." That 

 some rules, however, should be established, for the 

 protection of the ignorant against the arts of the 

 designing, appeared absolutely necessary to British 



