THE PROPORTIONS OF THE HORSE. 95 



beauty, no animal, man excepted, is allowed to exceed the horse : the 

 well-known admired picture which David has drawn of him in the 

 Psalms ; the eloquent allusions Shakspeare and other writers of 

 eminence have made to him ; all attest the estimation in which 

 these great observers of Nature held his form and qualifications ; 

 nor is " the noble horse" less admired and valued, in our country 

 at least, at the present day. 



Although beauty and utility, as regards animal bodies, on most 

 occasions are found to go hand-in-hand, the rule is far from want- 

 ing exceptions. An individual part — the head, for example — may 

 be small and faultlessly shaped, and yet the possessor of it, as now 

 and then happens among human creatures, may not be highly 

 gifted ; on the other hand, a horse having a plain, even an ugly 

 head, may possess high qualifications. Phrenologists may possibly 

 set these facts in a different light, though as yet the practical 

 horseman has not derived that assistance from the science of phre- 

 nology which more attention to it would probably afford him. 

 With a view of arriving at a knowledge of that frame-Avork of ani- 

 mal machinery from which we might reckon on deriving the 

 greatest power and speed, it was natural enough that any person 

 engaged in such an investigation should seek for a model of a horse, 

 and for one of that description which was known and proved to 

 perform in the most superior manner ; and having succeeded in find- 

 ing such a model of perfection, it was but natural for him to set it 

 up as a sort of prototype or standard, whereto others might be com- 

 pared, and whereby their powers might be estimated. Considera- 

 tions such as these appear to have prompted the first Professor of 

 the Veterinary College, St. Bel, to set about and produce his work 

 " On the Geometrical Proportions of Eclipse." St. Bel's 

 words in his "advertisement" are, "When first I employed myself in 

 taking the proportions of Eclipse, I had no other object in view than 

 to gratify my own curiosity with respect to the figure, extent, and 

 direction of the parts which compose a race- horse, and to compare 

 them with those of horses of different kinds, for the purpose of inform- 

 ing myself of the mechanical causes which conspire to augment the 

 velocity of the gallop." — " Since it is true, that the construction and 

 direction of the bony and muscular parts within determine the out- 

 ward figure of the body, a table of proportions, collected from the best 



