400 
MISCELLANEA. 
be entered at a steeple-chase, for why? he is as fast as a church. 
Thoroughpin with him is synonymous with ^ perfect leg.’ If a 
nag cougheth, ’tis ' a clever hack.’ If his knees be fractured, 
he is * well broke for gig or saddle.’ If he reareth, he ‘ is above 
sixteen hands high.’ If he hath drawn a tierce in a cart, he is 
a good fencer. If he biteth, he shews good courage ; and he is 
playful merely, though he should play the devil.. If he runneth 
away, he calleth him ^ off the Gretna Road, and has been used to 
carry a lady.’ If a cob stumbleth, he considereth him a true 
goer, and addeth ‘the proprietor parteth from him to go abroad.’ 
Thus, without much profession of religion, yet is he truly Chris¬ 
tian-like in practice, for he dealeth not in detraction, and would 
not disparage the character even of a brute. Like unto love, he 
is blind unto all blemishes, and seeth only a virtue, meanwhile he 
gazeth at a vice. He taketh the kick of a nag’s hoof like a love 
token, saying only, before standers by, ‘ poor fellow,—he knoweth 
me!’—and is content rather to pass as a bad rider, than that the 
horse should be held restive or over-mettlesome, which discharges 
him from its back. If it hath bitten him beside, and moreover 
bruised his limb against a coach-w’heel, then, constantly return¬ 
ing good for evil, he giveth it but the better character, and recom- 
mendeth it before all the studs in his stable. In short, the worse 
a horse may be, the more he chaunteth his praise; like a crow 
that croweth over Old Ball, whose lot it is on a common to meet 
with the common lot. 
Farriers’ Anvils. 
A BLACKSMITH of Milan, named Pontisick, has, to the 
great comfort of his neighbours, especially the rich, successfully 
practised a very simple contrivance to diminish, in a remarkable 
degree, the loud noise caused by the percussion of the hammer 
on the anvil. It is merely to suspend a piece of iron chain to one 
of the horns of the anvil, which carries off a gTeat portion of the 
acute sound usually produced. Sig. Giodenzio Vicini, of Asso, 
in the province of Como, has, however, introduced an improve¬ 
ment on this contrivance, by the addition of a spring fixed in 
the basis of the anvil, which, keeping the chain stretched, di¬ 
minishes the sound in a much greater degree; and it is equally 
easy to remove the ring of the chain from the horn of the anvil, 
if needful, by a mere blow of the hammer. — Literary Ga¬ 
zette. 
