THE YOUATT TESTIMONIAL. 
599 
the engravings were duly estimated by me ; but I could not reconcile myself 
to the author’s share of the work. It was not worthy of his subject, and I 
had met with the greater part of it elsewhere. 
Mr. R. Lawrence — some of his sketches of the defects of the horse were 
in a stile which Bunbury could scarcely excel. Every page bore the stamp of 
talent, but it bore likewise the marks of haste and of idleness. 
Mr. Bracy Clark had published several works, and I gave him much credit 
for talent and originality : but there was a spirit of dictation and assumption 
prevailing in many of his productions which destroyed much of the pleasure 
that would otherwise have attended their perusal, and very materially limited 
the number of his readers. 
Mr. White’s work had reached the third or the fourth volume. Ilis symp- 
tomatology was truly valuable, and every day’s experience confirmed the ac- 
curacy of his observations; but his medicine belonged to human and not to 
veterinary pharmacy. 
I have already given my warm and sincere testimony to the worth of Mr. 
Blaine’s Veterinary Outlines, and the increasing value of every edition. 
I hasten to the mention of other works more immediately connected with 
the commencement of The Veterinarian. 
In 1820 Mr. Goodwin’s work on the Shoeing of the Horse made its ap- 
pearance. There was no undue presumption, no shallow pretence here. It 
was the work of a practical and a scientific man ; it deserved, and it had, my 
honest study : but I happened accidentally to discover, that, notwithstanding 
the good and sterling matter which this work contained, and the useful plates 
by which it was illustrated, it took more than three years to dispose of the 
first edition of it, and then, the share of the profit of the author was not 
more than the majority of practitioners pocket for one fortnight’s work. You 
may suppose what were my feelings respecting veterinary readers, and the 
remuneration of veterinary authors. 
In 1823, 24, and 26, appeared Mr. W. Percivall’s “ Lectures on the Veteri- 
nary Art a work distinguished by the singular and undeviating accuracy 
of its statements, and the peculiar simplicity and force of its reasoning. It 
commenced a new era in veterinary literature. It is true that, sixteen years 
after the publication of the first volume, a complete copy of the work could 
not be purchased at much less than double its original price ; and it is now 
esteemed by the profession, as it ought from the commencement to have been : 
but the fact, the disgraceful fact is, that it required sixteen years to exhaust 
one edition of this excellent publication. Could we require a more striking, a 
more lamentable proof of the non-literary character of the profession at that 
time? The work, by the same author, which after an interval of ten years suc- 
ceeded to the Lectures, — “ The Hippo-pathology, or a Systematic Treatise on 
the Diseases and Lamenesses of the Horse,” — is, if possible, still more worthy of 
the author. He follows no plan of instruction adopted by others. He has cast 
off the trammels of the school in which he was educated ; and in language 
still more clear and appropriate and classical than the former, he disencum- 
bers his subject of every difficulty, while the perusal of his work is more a 
pleasing relaxation than a severe study. But I must not wander even on a 
topic so delightful as this. Nor must I, going back again to the period when 
we had no periodical, speak of the valuable and accurate instructions of 
Osmer — the cumbersome, and occasionally incorrect, statements of Board- 
man — the truly beautiful plates of Freeman — the simple, classical, argumen- 
tative instructions of the unfortunate Peall, and to whom we were indebted 
for the greatest boon ever conferred on our profession, although that honour 
was claimed by another, the elevation of the veterinary surgeon to the rank 
of a commissioned officer — the diminutive work of Mooreroft, yet full of im- 
