210 EMiLE (not Rousseau's). 



The usual and proper general treatment of mares 

 and young stock has been treated on by many so much 

 more able pens than mine, that I do not mean to 

 inflict on my readers the repetition of them : it would 

 be useless. The quoting superior authorities in cor- 

 roboration of our own opinions is quite fair, and evinces 

 a proper modesty of feeling : but the obtruding upon 

 the public as our own any opinions on any subject 

 that can be recognised as a mere gathering from abler 

 hands and heads, is merely offering a bad copy to 

 those who have the original : at least, I am quite sore 

 such would be the result if at any time I was guilty of 

 such plagiarism. There is a meanness in the thing 

 that no one likes. It is better by half to write like the 

 veriest schoolboy ; for if any thing at all like a man's 

 genuine ideas are thro^vn out, an indulgent public will 

 in such a case always make a liberal allowance for all 

 faults and feelings in the author, who, encouraged by 

 this lenity, will in time perhaps achieve better things. 

 Our colt having been produced, and itself and 

 mother properly attended to till weaning time, we 

 have nothing farther to do with the latter, who 

 returns to the seraglio, and our Emile must now 

 occupy our attention. 



Whether the horse was intended by nature as a 

 granivorous animal matters little at the present mo- 

 ment, or for my present purpose : it is, however, quite 

 clear that the domesticated horse has for generations 

 been accustomed to be so fed ; and so far inherits a 

 grain-fed constitution from his ancestors, that, to 

 render the animal suited to our present ideas of per- 

 fection, corn is as necessary to him as the water he 

 drinks. At no very remote period, corn was as un- 

 known to the colt prior to his breaking in, as Cayenne 



