ORDER PACHYDERM AT A. 457 



feigned. But, alas ! the poor animals are no great gainers ; 

 and, it may safely be asserted that more horses are con- 

 sumed in England in every ten years, than in any other 

 country in the world, in ten times that period, excepting 

 those which perish in the glorious barbarities of war. 



If the Tartars take too little care of their horses, we take 

 too much. There are few horses, perhaps in the world, so 

 liable to take cold as ours, of the better breeds. This de- 

 licacy of constitution in our horses, the result of too tender 

 an education, was thoroughly exemplified during the late 

 war. The French Horses, though, in other points much 

 inferior, evinced the most decided superiority in enduring 

 the fatigues and privations of campaigning. 



To enter into the details connected with the history of 

 the English Horses, would far exceed our limits, and in 

 many respects be foreign to the object of our work. We 

 must indeed, content ourselves with the briefest possible 

 sketch of the subject, and, in truth, it has been so often 

 amply treated of, and is so generally known, that our readers 

 may easily console themselves for our brevity. 



Our horses were originally altogether unfit for the saddle. 

 By the importation of Arabs, and other Asiatic horses, a 

 wonderful amelioration gradually took place, and the result 

 of their crossing, and the crossing of their offspring with 

 our indigenous breed, has been the production of four prin- 

 cipal classes of horses, the characters of which are exceed- 

 ingly well defined. 



The first is the Racer, immediately proceeding from an 

 Arabian or Barbary stallion, with an English mare, al- 

 ready crossed with a Barb or Arab, in the first degree, or 

 the result of two crossings in the same degree. This we 

 term first blood, or the nearest possible, to the foreign stock. 



The next is the Hunter, the result of the crossing of a 

 stallion of the first blood, with a mare of a degree less near 

 the original source. The conformation and admirable 



