642 
REVIEW. 
Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non. — Hon. 
The Pocket AND the Stud : or Practical Hints on the 
Management of the Stable. By HA.RRY HlEOVER. Small 8vo, 
pp. 215. London: Longman & Co. 1848. 
However far apart the laws of physics may set “ the Pocket” 
from “ the Stud,” the law of cause and effect will demonstrate them 
to be, incongruous as their natures may appear, successive links 
of one and the same chain. Without the pocket there could be 
no stud ; while but for the stud the pocket might oftentimes prove 
full when it is found empty. The object of the work we have in 
hand is to prevent such a disastrous state of affairs. The subject 
is a ticklish one — one nobody ought to undertake — albeit he be an 
“ undertaker,” as our author represents himself to be*, unless through 
conviction of “ practical experience” he felt himself thoroughly 
“ at home” upon it. No person keeps a horse but fancies he knows 
“ all about a horse,” and, pari ratione , all about his stable as well. 
Every groom, every stable-boy, with more pretension, aspires to 
the same kind of knowledge. A waggish astute old riding-master, 
an intimate friend of ours, was wont to say, whenever any young 
sprig of his acquaintance had become, for the first time in his life, 
possessed of a horse, that he would be sure to be “ down his horse’s 
throat before his mouth was open.” Now, if the equestrian tyro 
took such a summary mode of obtaining an insight into his new 
acquisition, there is every reason to suppose he would manifest 
like alacrity, and contrive to be “ in the stable before the door was 
open,” that he might thereby gain equally prompt and practical 
notions about stable management. 
Of all the various hobbies men ride in pursuit of pleasure, few 
are apt to turn out more costly than that living hobby yclept 
“ a horse.” Horses are expensive articles of purchase. Horses 
“ eat at night” as well as by day, while their keepers sleep. 
Horses are continually running or falling into scrapes. They 
fall down ; they fall lame ; they fall sick, and, now and then, 
* See the “ Introduction,” page 1. 
