2 
MR. PERCIVALL’s INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
consequent pecuniary worth he has, and most deservedly, at¬ 
tained. While he tills our land, and has hitherto formed our 
almost only means of land-transport; he fights our battles ; runs 
our races; transports us in the chase ; and either carries us upon 
his back, or draws us about in our carriages, from place to place, 
at once with pleasure, speed, and safety. Such, gentlemen, be¬ 
ing the leading qualifications of an animal which in this, beyond 
all other countries in the world, has flourished and improved, 
and grown to a value almost incredible, it may not be either un¬ 
interesting or out of place cursorily to inquire how, or by what 
means, he has been brought to such great perfection amongst us, 
above all other nations. 
That Britain owes little or nothing for its present horses to 
any indigenous breed it might have possessed, seems pretty cer¬ 
tain, not only from the silence of our historians on that subject 
in particular, but from the circumstance of the many recorded im¬ 
portations of horses, and excellent ones of their kind, our coun¬ 
try has had, at sundry times, from various parts of the continent; 
and from countries which at those times as much surpassed us in 
this particular as we of the present age do any and all of them. 
The only original breed history warrants our laying any claim to, 
seems to be the Welch pony, or some such rude production— 
an animal, though very useful in its way, as far different from and 
inferior to the generality of our present stock as it is possible for 
two animals of the same class to be. Indeed, we have arrived 
at such perfection in our present native breeds, that not only do 
we surpass all other nations in each and every one of them re¬ 
spectively, but appear in most of them to have produced speci¬ 
mens which have really no fellows or likes in any part of the 
world. The English race-horse derives his blood or characteristic 
breeding from the Arabian ; and yet so improved an animal is 
he become, that, while he retains almost all the corporeal beauty 
of his progenitor, he outshines him in every qualification that 
can render him, as a racer, valuable or useful. As for the Eng¬ 
lish cart-horse, it appears probable that he is, or rather originally 
was, an importation from Normandy or Flanders; but so far 
have we transcended our neighbours, even in the cart and car¬ 
riage breeds, that the state coach of their own sovereign (the 
King of the French) is now drawn by English horses. 
The bare mention of this universally acknowledged superiority 
in our horses, naturally creates in the mind a desire to learn by 
what means, or in what way, it has been acquired. That we 
are not indebted to our own original country or indigenous stock 
for it, appears pretty evident not only from the accounts we have 
of them, but from the comparatively recent date of some of our 
