ANiaiAi.s. 491 



measure in our legislature, to encourage the breed as a useful 

 branch of commerce, and a natural defence to the country. But 

 how far this end is answered by the breeding up of racers, is what 

 most persons, versed in this subject, are very apt to question. 



the services of the poor hack were too brutally exacted. The benevolent 

 Howell disdains not to legislate for the protecSion of this abused, and valu. 

 able servant. " Whoever shall borrow a horse, and rub the hair so as to 

 gall the back, shall pay fourpence; if the skin is forced into the flesh, eight- 

 pence ; if the flesh be forced into the bone, sixteen pence. 



One circumstance deserves to be remarked, that in none of the earliest 

 historical records of the Anglo-Saxons or the^Velsh, is there any allusion to 

 the use of the horse for the plough. Until a comparatively recent period, 

 oxen alone were used in England, as in other countries, for this purpose ; 

 but about this time (the latter part of the tenth century) some innovation on 

 this point was creeping in, and, therefore, a Welsh law forbids the farmer to 

 plough with horses, mares, or cows, but with oxen alone. On one of the 

 pieces of tapestry woven at Bayonne in the time of William the Conqueror, 

 (a. d. 1066) there is the figure of a man driving a horse attached to a harrow. 

 This is the earliest notice we have of the use of the horse in tield-labour. 



With William the Conqueror came a marked improvement in the British 

 horse. To his superiority in cavalry this prince was chiefly indebted for the 

 victory of Hastings. The favourite charger of William was a Spaniard. His 

 followers, both the banms and the common soldiers, came principally from a 

 country in which agriculture had made more rapid progress than in Eng- 

 land. A very considerable portion of the kingdom was divided among these 

 men ; and it cannot be doubted that, however unjust was the usurpation of 

 the Norman, England benefited in its husbandry, and particularly in its 

 horses, by the change of masters. Some of the barons, and particularly Roger 

 de Boulogne, earl of Shrewsbury, introduced the Spanish horse, on their 

 newly acquired estates. The historians of these times, however, principally 

 monks, knowing nothing about horses, give us very little information on tho 

 Bulyect. 



In the reign of Henry I. (a. d. H21) the first Arabian horse, or, at least, 

 the first on record, was introduced. Alexander I., king of Scotland, pre- 

 Bented to the church of St Andrews, an Arabian horse, with costly furni- 

 ture, Turkish armour, many valuable trinkets, and a considerable estate. 



Forty years afterwards, in the reign of Henry U., Sinithlield was cele- 

 brated as a horse-market Fitz-Stephen, who lived at that time, gives the 

 following animated account of the manner in which the hackneys and chiirg. 

 ing.steeds were tried there, by racing against one another. " When a race 

 is to be run by this sort of horses, and perhaps by others, which also in their 

 kind are strong and fleet, a shout is immediately raised, and the common 

 horses are ordered to withdraw out of the way. 'i'hree jockeys, or some, 

 times only two, as the match is made, prepare themselves for the contest. 

 The horses on their part are not without emulation ; they tremble and are 

 impatient, and are continually in motion. At last, the signal once given, they 

 start, devour the course, and hurry along with unremitting swiftness. The 

 lockcys, inspired with the thought of applause, and the hope of victory, clap 

 epiirs to their willing horses, brandish th"ir whins, and cheer thorn witU 



