NON NOBtS SOLUM. 
503 
admiration which we seem to have for the dexterity of the succes- 
ful politician and average public man. 
Great and fertile minds have given good precedent in this. 
What fervor of admiring contemplation is there in the language 
of Job : “ Hast thou given the horse strength ? Hast thou clothed 
his neck with thunder ? Canst thou make him afraid as a grass¬ 
hopper? The glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth in the 
valley and rejoiceth in his strength. He goeth on to meet the 
armed men. He mocketh at fear and is not affrighted, neither 
turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattled against him, 
the glittering spear and the shield. He swalloweth the ground 
with fierceness and rage, neither believe!h lie that it is the sound 
of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets ha! ha! and he 
smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the 
shouting.” 
Rosa Bonheur and Schreycr would envy, I fancy, some of 
yourselves, your knowledge of those inward traits of the horse, 
of which they portray but the outward sign. Virgil, in the melo¬ 
dious measure of the resounding feet of the steeds over the plains, 
found sympathetic movement with his rhythm. In that treatment 
of the misty past of which Homer supplies the legends, we dis¬ 
cover that his poetic admiration of the clash of war kept kindly 
eye and ear open, hardly less for the exploits of the chargers than 
for those of the charioteers. So important a part do man’s do¬ 
mestic neighbors in animal kind serve in stimulating his better 
emotions, that one is tempted to believe that a horseless sphere 
would make but an indifferent heaven. Superstition has often 
attached wings to the human form. But that magnificent power 
of poetical creation which made rich the ancient Greek and 
Roman races happily figured the horse with wings and rode him 
demonstrably to the highest heaven of invention. The intimate 
association of this animal with the destinies of man seem some¬ 
what shadowed in biblical imagery when death is seen mounted 
on the pale horse. The glimpse which we catch of the noble 
animal constrained to help in deeds of blood alien to his nature, 
prepares us to note farther how tardy justice has been towards 
him, if not always in recent generations. 
