82 Among Men and Horses. 



expressed differently, if not actually omitted. Hence, 

 when I have the fortunate opportunity of bringing out a 

 new edition, I always feel compelled to re-write the entire 

 work ; for I never can satisfy myself by mere marginal 

 corrections. I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said 

 that the setting up of type was the most valuable instruction 

 in English composition he had ever received ; for during 

 this tedious process he had full opportunities of analysing 

 the • copy,' and specially of noting faults of redundancy and 

 ambiguity. As ' composing ' was to Franklin, so re-writing 

 has been to me the most efficient means of improvement in 

 style, for which, I freely confess, there still remains ample 

 room. Anyway, there is no such thing as finality in art. 

 Pains at literary work are well spent ; for, as it has been 

 truly remarked, hard writing makes easy reading, and vice 

 versa. Another advantage, which an author has, of re- 

 writing and re-illustrating a book for a new edition, is that the 

 fact of its having been given a different garb, will induce many 

 persons who already possess a copy of the old edition, to 

 invest in one of the new issue. I have mentioned that 

 Mr Sturgess illustrated the second edition of my book on 

 riding. He did the work admirably, and carried out my 

 ideas, which, by the light of more extended experience, now 

 appear to me crude in many instances ; but that, of course, 

 was not his fault. His horses, or perhaps I might more 

 correctly say, his horse, was so well known to the public by 

 means of the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic Nezvs, that, 

 after the second edition had appeared, almost everyone who 

 spoke about it to me, declared that they had previously seen 

 the same illustrations in Mr Webling's paper. This, really, 

 was not the case ; for Mr Sturgess, in the most painstaking 

 way, had made separate studies for each of the drawings he 

 did for me. I fully grant that his horses in Mr Watson's 

 paper have an extraordinary family likeness to each other : 

 a fact which cannot be wondered at. A man who has to 

 draw, week after week, for, say, twenty years, horses to 



