482 
LECTURES ON HORSES. 
and a half heads. I say this will account for his apparent out-of-pro- 
portioned tallness, but it will not account for his neck measuring 
thirty-three inches, or being equal to one and a half head’s length. 
The regular proportion of the length of the neck being one head, 
we can in nowise account for the eleven inches in excess by sup- 
posing that the head was two or three or even four inches shorter 
than heads in general ; and therefore the inevitable deduction is 
that Eclipse had a long neck, certainly a most desirable formation 
in a race-horse. His neck, as well as being long , was likewise 
well-proportioned ; for it measured in width twenty-two inches at 
its junction with the shoulders? and yet was but a foot across at its 
union with the head, shewing how beautifully it must have tapered 
upward : whether it was of the rainbow shape, or was straight , is 
not quite evident. 
The head of Eclipse must have partaken a good deal of the 
Arabian character; and no wonder, since, on the side of his dam, 
he is only the sixth remove from the pure Arabian : his dam being 
got by Regulus ; his grandam by a full brother to Wildman’s 
Squirrel ; his great grandam by Lord Darcey’s Montague ; his 
great great grandam by Hautboy ; his great, great, great grandam 
by Brimmer, son of the Oglethorp Arabian. 
Below * the eyes, St. Bel informs us, it measured, across, one 
foot ; but from one eye to the other only seven inches ; shewing 
that along with this extraordinary breadth of forehead his eyes 
were well placed, towards the centre of his head : points not only 
of utility, but of beauty likewise. 
The breadth of the lower or posterior part of the neck (twenty- 
two inches), with the measure of the scapula, eighteen inches, and 
the largeness of the chest, are circumstances sufficient for us to 
come to the conclusion that Eclipse possessed some depth of 
shoulder ; it was likewise oblique, for its angle of inclination 
amounted to 70° : in fact, all the fault St. Bel could find with the 
shoulder appears to have been, that it was “ too much loaded 
a fault, if fault it be, that certainly denotes strength, and one 
which, I feel no doubt, many racing people would prefer to “ a fine 
shoulder.” 
Eclipse’s body measured, across its middle, twenty-six inches in 
depth, and the same in breadth ; consequently he must have pos- 
sessed “ a circular barrel;” and his girth, around the middle of his 
body, at least, must have been — taking twenty-six inches for the 
diameter of the circle — seventy-eight inches ; a circumstance 
which, unless we take it to have been that of the bare bones, or of 
* This must be an error. The measure must have been taken above the 
eyes, from one orbital arch to the opposite. 
