HASTY HINTS UPON HORSES.
When we told you, some few months back, O gentle reader! that, (to borrow a phrase from Brother Jonathan, about the only thing, by the way, which our occidental relative possesses worth the lending,) beyond all the beasts of the earth, a dog "went a-head" in our affections, we intimated, at the same time, that our heart had many corners for many other animals. We said we loved an elephant; but we are not going to talk about one now. He is by far too large and weighty a subject to be taken up in a hot July morning, when the sun, as somebody says, "makes the whole world Troglodytic." We said we loved a mouse; and so we do, or rather so we would, if he would let us. He might gnaw and nibble at the oldest Stilton in our dairy with impunity; for we could not find in our hearts to hurt so much as the tip of his tail; but the "wee, sleekit, cowrin', timorous beastie," has no reciprocal sentiment of affection. He scampers to his hole at our approach, as though we were "a kitten and cried mew;" he obstinately refuses to be loved; and he deserves not that pen, ink, and paper should be thrown away upon his ingratitude. We said we loved a horse—of a horse, then, be it our "hint to speak."
Now, the devil of it is, that, to talk about horses, one wants a world of technical knowledge, in which the pen-flourishing generation is, we fear, for the most part, lamentably deficient. We ourselves, much as we like a horse, are any thing but a "sworn horse-courser;" and, had we to go to market for ourselves, might more than probably find the knowing ones a trifle too deep for us. We are not quite convinced that we entertain very definite ideas on the subject of hocks, frogs, fetlocks, and pasterns; and as to thrushes, splints, spavins, and ring-bones, we are, beyond all controversy, in a state of more than Cimmerian obscurity. Having ingenuously confessed thus much, you will scarcely feel surprised when we inform you, O gentle reader! that we have not at present the slightest intention of qualifying every man to act as his own veterinary surgeon—that we are not going to expatiate upon the magnificent steed of the Honourable Five-bar Rasper, or his Grace the Duke of Double-ditch—that we have not the remotest idea of entering into a discussion of the much vexata quæstin of the paternity of Bloomsbury, or commencing a historical and philosophical investigation into the origin and legality of the authority of the Jockey Club. All this, we say, you will readily conceive; but should it, as we trust it will not, enter into your most inquisitive noddle, to ask us what we really do mean to talk about, why, we are "free to confess," as the Parliament men say, you will thereby put us to a pretty considerable nonplus. We can only recommend you to shut your mouth—we are not particular about this first article, only it is hot weather, and the flies are strong in the land—open your eyes, (our respected grandmother, who was accused, most unjustly as we think, of spoiling us with sugar-plums, used to reverse the precept,) sit down on a cane-bottomed chair, as the best possible antidote to somnolence which we can think of—prick up your "most attent ear," and—so, you are ready?—then here goes for a plunge.
There are few occupations (we like a sententious beginning) more agreeable to minds of a contemplative and philosophical cast, than to observe the numerous variations of national feeling, as exhibited under the numerous variations of climate and complexion—to note the different lights in which the same object is regarded in different latitudes. The poor Arab—we are no travellers, and cannot speak from our own experience, but we have too much gallantry to dream of impugning the veracity of the Honourable Mrs Norton—the poor Arab, before he mounts his steed, after gazing upon him with a five-minute glance of unalterable affection, breaks forth into some such impassioned apostrophe as
"My beautiful! my beautiful! that standest meekly by.
With thy proudly arch'd and glossy neck—thy bright and speaking eye,"
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, for about ten minutes more, and having thus
