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CLASSES AND BREEDS OF BRITISH HORSES. 509 



try. They preserved the native Horse ; but it does not ap- 

 pear that they ever made the least figure as horsemen, in 

 which respect they resembled other Celtic nations who have 

 occupied countries of mountains. 



The Saxons, though a Gothic nation, were little given to 

 the multiplying of Horses ; and it does not appear that they 

 ever became distinguished as horsemen in their new country. 

 It cannot be supposed that they transported many horses to 

 a country already possessed of them, in the small and dan- 

 gerous vessels with which they navigated the northern seas ; 

 and therefore it may be assumed that, up to the period of the 

 Norman Conquest in England, and for many centuries after- 

 wards in Scotland, the Horses of the country remained essen- 

 tially the same as when the Romans first encountered them 

 in the battle-chariots of the Celtse. 



But the Normans were ardently devoted to the Horse, as 

 an instrument of their wars and silvan exercises. William I. 

 transported with him a numerous cavalry, to which he mainly 

 owed the first victory which enabled him to give law to the 

 country, and his rude successors and feudatories retained in 

 after ages the Norman tastes in what regarded the Horse. 

 War and the chase occupied the thoughts of these barba- 

 rians, and the barons and great vassals of the Crown, amongst 

 whom the wretched kingdom was partitioned, carried the 

 Norman passion for the Horse to their newly-acquired pos- 

 sessions. But the Normans, although they conquered the 

 country, did not, like the Saxons, colonize it. They forced 

 upon it their laws and polity, but were too few in num- 

 bers to alter essentially the characters, the language, or, 

 for many ages, the social habits of the people. Neverthe- 

 less, with the conquest of the Normans began a change in 

 the Horses of England. The communication with France, 

 the Low Countries, and the neighbouring parts of Germany, 

 being opened, horses superior to those of the ancient Bri- 

 tons and Anglo-Saxons could be obtained. Then, too, was 

 the age of chivalry, of heavy-armed knights, and men-at- 



