The Horse and ite Historians. 
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Astley's Art of Riding, 1584 ; Clifford's School of Horsemanship, 
1585 ; Gervase Markham's Discourse of Horsemanshippc, 1593 ; 
and his Cavelaire, or the English Horseman, 1607 ; the last- 
named writer being also the author of several other works of a 
somewhat wider scope, such as the treatise on horses in his 
Country Contentments, 1611 ; Markham's Maister Piece, 1615 , and 
his Faithful Farrier, 1635, all of which passed through several 
editions and were very popular in their day. De Grey's Compleat 
Horseman, 1639, many times reprinted, was another popular book. 
In the time of Charles II. there appeared (1683) rather a notable 
work on the Anatomy of the Horse, by Andrew Snape, farrier to his 
Majesty — sufficiently esteemed to be translated into French, and to 
pass through three or four editions. Nearly a century later, An 
Anatomical Description of the Bones in the Foot of the Horse, by 
James Clark of Edinburgh (1770), and the same author's Observa- 
tions on the Shoeing of Horses, attracted considerable attention, and 
were translated into German j while later still the name of Bracy 
Clark became well known through his numerous treatises on the 
anatomy and pathology of the horse, his first essay, On the Bots in 
Horses, appearing in 1796. 
The earliest treatise on horse-breeding by an Englishman, though 
it was written in Latin, was the work of Richard Sadler, 1587. The 
first English book on racing is Gervase Markham's Hoiv to Choose, 
Ride, Traine, andDyet both Hinting and Running Horses. It at first 
formed part of his Discourse of Horsemanshippe, 1593, but in 1596 
was separately printed. The oldest English work on the natural 
history and external form of the horse is probably Topsell's Historie 
of Foure-footed Beastes, 1607, although it is obviously a compilation 
from older authors of different nationality. 
Of the nearly one thousand English books on the horse, almost 
one-half have been printed since 1850. At least 919 works on the 
horse in the French language have been enumerated, no less than 
580 of which have appeared since 1850. But although prior to 1800 
there were twice as many English as French books on the subject, 
during the last five-and-thirty years the latter have exceeded the 
former by 116. The most voluminous writers have, however, been 
the Germans, no fewer than 1,252 books on the horse standing to 
their credit up to 1886. These comprise more works relating to 
anatomy, veterinary practice, and cavalry than exist in English, but 
fewer dealing with hunting and racing. On equitation, breaking, 
training, and stable management, the authorship is pretty equally 
divided. Next to the French, who stand third on the list after the 
Germans and English, come the Italians with 167 works, and the 
Spanish with 127. Swedish and Danish have each produced 62 
works, Dutch 30, Portuguese 12, Norwegian 9, Polish 8, and Hunga- 
rian 3, whilst at least 10 are of Eastern origin. These statistics serve 
to show not only the importance attached to the history of the horse, 
but the share which different nations have contributed to the lite- 
rature of the subject in all its branches. 
