REVIEW—PERCIVALL S HIPPOPATHOLOG Y. 389 
be egotism—or to speak in terms which the heart and the judg¬ 
ment would prompt of the labours and the merits of each other; 
for much of it would be ascribed by all our readers to the parti¬ 
ality which long connexion and mutual esteem and identity of 
feeling and opinion on various points have naturally engendered; 
and there are those, who, from the perversion of their own minds, 
would conjure up another and a worse motive. 
v Mr. Percivall’s new work on the horse could not, however, 
as a mere matter of form, pass unnoticed ; it is too much iden¬ 
tified with the improvement and the honour of our profession ; 
and we were making up our minds to forget for a little while 
that which will even mingle with our most pleasant and choicest 
reminiscences, and assume the character of the cold, unhumanized 
critic, when we were relieved from all our embarrassment by 
seeing the subject taken up by one, than whom, out of our 
profession, we know not any more competent,—a highly gifted 
practical horseman, a friend to us and our craft—the author of 
“Nimrod’s Letters on the Condition of Hunters.” 
We copy from the “ New Sporting Magazine” Mr. Apperley’s 
Review of the first volume of the “ Hippopathology.” It em¬ 
bodies our sentiments, and faithfully pourtrays the characteristic 
excellencies of the work. 
“It is a well known, although, all things considered, rather a 
singular fact, that the country in which 1 now reside (France) 
is the parent of veterinary science ; but the truth is, the proud 
stomachs of Englishmen of a respectable class in life were a long 
time before they could digest the stigma that was supposed to at¬ 
tach to the inferior offices of the farrier . Indeed, we are told 
in the preface to Mr. Joseph Goodwin’s valuable treatise on 
shoeing horses, that Professor Coleman himself thought we 
could only look to the sons of grooms and farriers for practical 
veterinarians. Neither can this be wondered at; for if there 
be one class of beings whose practice and general conduct 
assimilated them to brute beasts, it is that which was composed 
of the illiterate horse doctors of olden times. But a strange 
alteration has taken place in this department of our rural 
economy. The empiric, who trusted to mere practice and the 
credulity of the public for the establishment of his undeserved 
reputation, is now become a rara avis in the land, and, when the 
few that remain shall have run the course allotted to them, the 
breed will be extinct. We shall hear no more of the hereditary 
possession of recipes and talent which these worthies were 
renowned for, people having at length found out, that even practice 
not founded on the basis of theory, is little worth. On the 
VOL. VII. 3 E 
