ON BREEDING, 
48T 
He is the only animal in existence that can be compelled to run 
after feeling fatigued. The ass refuses to proceed; the dog ser¬ 
vilely crouches at his master's feet; but the generous, high-spirited 
horse runs with all his strength, and in the extraordinary feats 
which he accomplishes to please his rider he oftentimes outdoes 
his nature, and even dies, in order the better to obey: 
Noblest of the train 
That wait on man, the fight-performing horse, 
With unsuspecting readiness he takes 
His murderer on his back, and pushed all day 
With bleeding sides, and flanks that heave for life, 
To the far distant goal arrives, and dies. Covvpek. 
Such is the horse, who, after being domesticated, is either care¬ 
fully attended and fed in “ luxurious profusion,’" or reduced to 
perpetual slavery, and scantily supplied with food for his sustenance. 
His natural diseases are few, but our ill usage and neglect entail 
on him a numerous train of evils which are oftentimes fatal; and 
if we compare the wild horse with the quiet docile creature that 
has been subjugated to the purposes of man (for his domestication 
entailed on him at once a life of slavery and labour, and on man¬ 
kind one of the greatest acquisitions from the animal world), we 
shall find the former, whose motions have never been constrained, 
“ Wild as the wild deer, and untaught 
and, proud of his liberty, he flies from.the presence of man, and 
disdains his protection: wandering about in immense meadows, he 
gathers the fertile productions of a perennial spring, 
“ With flowing tail, and flying mane, 
Wide nostrils—never stretched by pain, 
Mouth bloodless to the bit and rein, 
And feet that iron never shod, 
And flanks unscarr’d by spur or rod 
but the latter, by an unremitting continuance of labour, often¬ 
times from the early age of two years old, beginning in the 
training stable or riding house, and his utmost speed exerted at 
a time when his strength is unable to support it, is soon crippled 
and disabled ; and after being nearly worn out in the service of 
his master, and no longer capable of administering to his plea¬ 
sures, he is discarded, and consigned, probably, to the possession 
of a post-master, where, cruelly oppressed by a “ coalescence of 
injuries,” he drags out his miserable existence by performing 
double labour with half of his original strength, 
“ Till at last, having laboured, drudged early and lale. 
Bowed down by degrees, he bends to his late,— 
Blind, old, lean, and feeble, lie tugs round a mill. 
Or draws sand, till the sand ol his hour-glass stands still/ 
