4 LECTURES ON HORSES. 



metical scale, is nevertheless one that, in the animal kingdom, 

 will be found pretty generally to apply. Compare the tardy and 

 tedious march of the elephant with the nimble-footedness of the 

 mouse ; the sluggish walk of the cart-horse with the amble of the 

 pony ; the heavy step of the grenadier with the light active trip 

 of the little man of business ; and in every instance there will ap- 

 pear some exemplification of this law. Is not this enough to shew 

 that the height and bulk of animals has not been a mere affair of 

 chance or accident, but a principle of design for wise and benevolent 

 purposes 1 Is not the large cart or dray-horse as useful a creature 

 in his way as the racer or the hunter, the cob or the pony 1 Could 

 any one of these completely supply the place of the other 1 Could 

 the racer drag the brewer's dray 1 — the dray-horse run the racer's 

 course!- — the pony carry the cob's twenty-stone weight? It is, 

 now-a-days, notorious enough among "judges of horses," that size 

 and bulk are indispensable for the carriage of heavy weight and 

 for the draft of heavy carriages : a slender-made horse, however 

 intrinsically good he may be, cannot perform in such situations. 



We must take care, however, not to run away with the impression 

 that, in animal structure, capacity, or what is called " goodness," 

 increases in direct ratio with greatness. When it does — which is 

 only now and then — 'nothing short of the same size and volume can 

 prove equivalent to it. Every horseman well knows that " a good 

 big horse" will always beat a good little or less horse, the difficulty 

 being to find the former. Everybody has a good pony. There 

 hardly ever was known a bad one. But how few persons have 

 possessed good sixteen or eighteen-stone-carrying hunters! Our 

 best racers and hunters have all been great or big horses — horses 

 15..2 or 16 hands high, and large in proportion. Need I mention 

 the names of Selim, Reubens, Castrel, Sorcerer, Soothsayer, Vol- 

 taire, Charles XII, Middleton, Velocipede, Camel, and, last and 

 greatest of all, Harkaway 1 * or need I say to my reader, — " go into 

 Leicestershire, and look at the hunters there, and you will see my 

 observations amply enough verified?" So that, when goodness is 

 combined with greatness, perfection is nearer approached than in 

 any other form. 



* The following marcs were equally remarkable for size and excellence : — 

 Altisidora, Fleiir-de-Lis, Queen of Trumps, ( Irucifix, and Orelia. 



