10 METHOD OF STUDYING [fiOOK I. 



6. To effect those objects in the plainest 

 possible manner, and to teach without circumlo- 

 cution the willing pupil, we do not think it neces- 

 sary, as on the former occasion, to exhort him 

 repeatedly to pay attention to our inculcations; 

 neither to reprobate harshly those who undertake 

 to prescribe without taking a view of the beautiful 

 structure upon which their ever-burning, drastic 

 medicines, are destined to act — because we are now 

 convinced that scarcely any owner of a decent horse 

 would call in such a pseudo doctor at the present 

 day. For, since the year we began to write and to 

 examine into the premises, we observed them fast 

 falling into grave decay, or they have come over 

 to the adoption of a more rational practice. Even 

 the grooms, whom James White thought proper 

 to decry on twenty occasions, in his Compendium, 

 have shewn a general disposition to study the sub- 



" John Hinds's book, if re-written, might be rendered useful to 

 scientific persons, if it embraced all that is known on the subject ; and 

 so impressed am I with its necessity, that I will offer my services in 

 correcting and completing a scientific edition, gratis." Herein, by the 

 way, the gentleman blunders egregiously : if our intention had been 

 to send forth a mere scientific work, we should not have termed our 

 treatise, "a familiar" one; nor have called it " popular," neither 

 have thought it "an easy plan" as well as new, nor addressed it to 

 the " shoeing-smith, farrier, and groom." 



Again, he says, " although the book contains some useful infor- 

 mation, yet it abounds with vulgar phrases, and unscientific, unpro- 

 fessional, and bad language." We knew this beforehand; how else 

 could we make ourselves understood by the generality of those 

 unscientific, unprofessional persons, for whom alone we wrote, and 

 whom alone we delighted to enlighten? 



