604 
THE YOUATT TESTIMONIAL. 
but the arch look of my friend, and the query full of meaning — Irarum tantos 
volvis sub pectore fluctus ? would produce its sedative effect in a moment, and 
we went quietly to work again, for we were aware whose eyes were upon us, 
and we could hear and feel the good wishes of the few, amidst the silence, or, 
perchance, the execrations of others. 
Duty and gratitude constrain me to acknowledge how much I owe to the 
first Editor of The Veterinarian, and to that presiding spirit to which I have 
already alluded, and which communicated its character and spirit to the work. 
How often has he said to us, “ Pursue the course you have marked out for 
yourselves ; it is worthy of The Veterinarian and of you. Attack, expose 
the measures — (they were fearful and disgraceful times in which the second 
volume of The Veterinarian were written) but spare the man. You may 
have your private wrongs — I have ; — but your work belongs to the profession, 
and dare ever to shew that you are in the slightest degree influenced by ma- 
lignity or revenge, and I will disown The Veterinarian and you.” I can 
say with perfect truth, that he did, to a very considerable extent, give tone 
and feeling to this Periodical'; and, even to the present hour, will the remem- 
brance of him controul and direct a work anxiously nursed by him in its in- 
fancy, and regarded by him with exultation wdien it had reached a somewhat 
mature growth. I will not deny that the continuance of The Veterinarian 
is, in a great measure, to be traced to the doggedness of him w r ho cannot 
easily be driven from what he esteems a good purpose, a*nd who, perhaps, 
somew hat too pertinaciously clings to that which may not be strictly defensible; 
but still he has a sacred duty to perform towards those to whom he, as an in- 
dividual, and the profession generally, are so deeply indebted. 
Eight years have nearly passed since this Periodical was consigned to me. 
Its progress has been slow', but steady ; and I often flatter myself that it has 
yet attained but a part of its popularity, that it has accomplished but a part 
of its end and aim. In the way of pecuniary recompense, it is not that which 
some may imagine. It does not approach to what a practised writer would 
expect as his remuneration. I speak not this in the way of complaint, for it 
satisfies, fully satisfies me, and I do not know the bribe which would induce me 
to abandon or neglect it. My happiest hours are spent about it. They will 
become dearer to me from the recollections of such an evening as this : and 
when at some future, and, perhaps, no distant period, The Veterinarian 
may revert to him with whom it originated, it will be enabled with bolder 
front to assume its standing among the Periodicals of the day, and better 
accomplish the noble purpose for which it was first instituted. 
Sir, I stop not now to enumerate its rivals, or to ask what is become of 
the greater part of them. They had their day — it was a short one, and they 
are passed and gone. Requiescant in 'pace l Were I to particularize any of 
them, and perhaps, in language which on such an evening I ought not to use, 
I should refer to those by whom the original Society of the College was de- 
stroyed, and who would fain have strangled in its birth the present Veterinary 
Medical Association. It is one of the proudest circumstances connected with 
The Veterinarian, that, acting in concert wdth some of the noblest spirits 
of their time, it contributed to the establishment of that Association, than 
which there will be no agent so intimately connected with the onward pro- 
gress of our art. Have some of my friends forgiven the self-will which, 
on that occasion, I more than once exhibited, but by which eventually the 
cause of truth and science was benefitted ? 
Mr. Field has done me the kindness to allude to other writings of mine 
connected with veterinary science. “ The Horse” — the first and the most 
imperfect of them — I had a double motive for exertion, — the love of the sub- 
ject and the interest of my employers. I could not have expected that it 
