XIX. Scarce Roland now can trust his eyes, The sight his wit defying; The hand and head, his good blade's prize, Both spear and sword and arms are gone, XX. Earl Milo gazed upon the dead, And at the huge corse wonder'd. "A lengthy log without the head, How tall before 'twas sunder'd! Here lies the foe; asleep! ah, shame! I've lost both victory and fame, And live for aye dishonour'd !" XXI. King Karl came out before his hall, His trusty peers expecting, Afraid lest harm might them befal; Then forth his gaze directing, "Say, see I aught? Aye, by my crown, Duke Haimon's riding through the town, His spear the foe's head bearing." XXII. Duke Haimon came in cheerless mood, His lance was lowly drooping; The giant's head, all red with blood, He lower'd, humbly stooping. "I found it in the wood," he said, And fifty steps beyond the head The headless trunk was lying." XXIII. The bishop soon was seen to bear The giant's glove steel-woven ; The stiff and stark band still was there That Roland's sword had cloven. "A relic of great price!" he cried; "I found it in the woodland wide, Cut from the arm that own'd it !" XXIV. Next came the bold Bavarian duke, The giant's spear-shaft dragging. "I found it in the forest, look! No wonder I come lagging; With sweat and toil I've brought the spear; A cup of my Bavarian beer Right gladly I'd be drinking !" XXV. Count Richard next approach'd his lord, Beside his charger striding, Upon the steed the giant's sword And heavy harness riding. "Who will," he said, among the trees, May find more arms as big as these, Far more than I could carry." XXVI. Then Count Garin the king espies, The giant's buckler swinging. "He has the shield-his is the prize, He comes the jewel bringing." "The shield I have; the gem is gone; Another hand has won the stone, And wrenched it from its setting." HORSES AND HORSE COPERS. EVERY now and then some question comes on for public discussion in the most mysterious manner; it rises by imperceptible gradations, and gradually involves the newspaper and literary press in its discussion. Of late the question of the day has been that of horses. Have horses deteriorated? Is our system of handicapping leading to the production of worthless weedy animals? Is Ireland losing all her best blood? The vehemence with which these questions have been discussed shows the interest the national mind takes in them, and the wonderful diversity of opinion that is entertained upon them. Whilst, therefore, the public attention is thus directed to the noble animal, we may perhaps be permitted to say a few words respecting them without touching the more prominent points in dispute. The Londoner, whether his avocation lies among horseflesh or not, believes he knows something about the matter, and perhaps with some reason,—for is there not a permanent horse-show in Hyde Park every season, where he sees finer specimens of the animal, and in greater numbers, than the world can show besides ? Yet if you test the Londoners' knowledge of horses, you soon discover that it is entirely superficial. Where they come from, how they are trained, what are their really valuable points or otherwise, are questions respecting which they are in entire ignorance. England has so long maintained a superiority in the matter of horse-flesh, that the public are apt to smile with derision when the efforts of other nations in the same direction are mentioned; and the shock, therefore, is proportionately great when we find that success is not always denied to them. During the last racing season, to wit, our best horses have been beaten by Frenchmen-our Derby winners have come in second to comparatively unknown animals on a French race-course-we have had one or two falls in contests with our American cousins, and some of us are beginning to rub our eyes, and ask how all this comes about. It is at least consolatory to know that in every case it is English blood that has beaten us. We sell our best stock openly to all nations, and we must not be surprised, therefore, at finding that stock has not deteriorated by change of air, and by the superior training they get abroad. The extent to which foreigners are draining us of our best equine blood is little known; neither do we imagine the British public is prepared to find that we import so many horses as we do at present from the Continent. In the year 1853, we sold abroad 1902 horses, of the declared value of 85,9671. This was just before the Crimean war. In the year 1863, the number had increased to 4348, of the declared value of 270,611. The greater portion of these horses were to mount foreign cavalry; and a speculative mind may perhaps be tempted to imagine that this demand on the part of continental governments was not made without a due regard to the mettle of our cavalry, as exhibited in the famous ride of the "Five Hundred." Our imports have fallen off, as we find that in 1853 they were 1978, against 1819 in 1862; but they were of a very different kind from those that left our shores. We sent away a class of animal such as we use in omnibuses, many of which are employed to mount officers; whilst we received in return a coarse agricultural animal from North Germany, and our own best blood, educated by the Prussians. We are apt to contemplate with great pride the noble animals we see curvetting and prancing upon the soft tan in Rotten Row, and to imagine that the world cannot, in this article at least, compete with us. If the parklounger were to express such sentiments aloud, h would probably excite a curl of contempt on the moustache of the foreign gentleman with the military air close to him, and with reason. These high-bred horses, whose action attracts the merest novice, are not English horses at all: they are born and bred in Prussia, but are of English blood. These horses are trained by the cavalry officers of that country, with a delicacy and an intelligence our rough-riders know nothing about; and this education of our own stock we know how to appreciate and to pay for. Cavalry officers in Prussia are particularly fond of the ménage. They are allowed by their Government to keep three horses, and they employ their idle time in breaking and elevating the colts of English blood; and our dealers, ever on the look-out for such animals, are always ready to purchase. What more significant comment could we possibly make upon the superiority of foreign to home horse-breaking and training? It is at least consolatory to our national pride to find that it is only the park-horse that receives any value from the management of the foreigner. Our racing stud is entirely our own, if we make the admission that it has been elevated to its present proud position by the infusion of Arab blood it received at a comparatively early date; but this infusion would have been of little value if grafted on a less promising stock. It must be conceded that the indigenous British horse was admirable from the earliest times. Cæsar says as much in his Commentaries, for he admits that the Ancient Britons in their chariots were more than a match for him at times. We are apt to think that the aboriginal British horse was a mere pony-represented by the animals that ran wild on Exmoor some half a century ago; but it is quite clear that such animals would not have been capable of working the scythe chariots used in war by the Britons, as these must have been heavy, besides having to carry the charioteer and the fighting-man. No under-sized animals would have been up to this work, and no other than high-couraged horses could have charged as they did, right into the midst of the enemy. Blood and substance must, therefore, be conceded to our original stock. When this stock was crossed with the pure Arabian blood, the produce at once took the first place among the horseflesh of Europe. It must not be supposed, however, that even in the element of swiftness, the English blood derived much advantage from the Arabian or Barb blood. As long back as the latter end of the sixteenth century we have the unobjectionable testimony to this fact, of Gervase Markham, that complete sportsman, who has left us the best account of the character of early English horses. Speaking of a trial between the foreign blood and our own in his day, he says "Now for their inward goodness; first, for their valure and endurance in the wars, I have seene them suffer and execute as much and more than ever I noted in any other forraine creation. For swiftness, what nation hath brought foorth that horse which hath the English? for proofe whereof we have this example: when the best Barbaries that ever were in my remembrance, were in their prime, I saw them overrunne by a black hobbie (Irish horse) at Salisburie, of Maister Carlton's, and yet the hobbie was more overrunne by a horse of Maister Blackstone's, called 'Valentine,' which Valentine, neither in hunting nor running, was equalled, yet was a plaine-bred English horse both by syre and dam." ever That the Arabian did not bring us swiftness as its main gift, has been proved over and over again, when the best horses of that country have been matched against even secondclass English horses, and have been beaten always over a short course. That the Arabians and Barbs, however, brought us other great qualities of endurance and courage-in other words, breed-there can be no doubt; for our great racers have been the produce of Arabian sires. The admixture of this blood during the early part of the last century was very great. The sires of this country have indeed, in a large measure, influenced the whole of our racing animals up to the present time. Darley's Arabian, the first of this blood of great note, made the earliest impression upon our English stock. Flying Childers, foaled in 1715, was his son; and this horse is said to have been the fastest that ever ran. Dodsworth was another Barb of pure quality; and then came Godolphin, an Arabian, whose descendant, Eclipse, has long been a name in the Racing Calendar familiar to every English man. Within the present century, pure Arab sires are rarely employed; yet the influence of the old stock is most certainly not worn out. Whatever effect the practice of racing under present conditions in this country may have upon our horses' powers of endurance, one thing is quite certain-it has had no ill effect upon their speed. Flying Childers-reputed the fastest horse that has ever appeared in England -although said to have run a mile within a minute, never did anything of the kind. In the record of his performance over the Broad Course at Newmarket, the length of which was three miles, six furlongs, and ninety-three yards, he is said to have done it in six minutes and forty seconds, or at the rate of one minute and forty-six seconds the mile; about the rate of running of a first-class racer of the present day, and much higher than the performances of the Arab racers to be found in the modern stud-book. It is equally questionable whether they have fallen off in powers of endurance. This is not the first time the same complaint has been made with respect to our horseflesh. In every age we look back to impossible horses in the past, just as we look back to impossible men. If it had not been for the Eglintoun tournament, the old story of the degeneration of the Englishman would have been still fully believed; but when it was proved, on that occasion, that we could not get into the iron clothes of other days, nothing more was to be said. It may be a question whether we are not wearing out our blood by sacrificing everything to speed at a very early age, and whether the old style of races, for long distances and with heavy weights, may not be resorted to with advantage in some of the matches for the Queen's plates; but that is a matter which our racing-men must decide. If we turn from the ride to the drive, we shall certainly do so with unmixed pleasure; when we look upon the splendid carriagehorses which pass us in such endless procession, we can do so without the slightest chance of hearing that their race has degenerated, or that our equipages are worse horsed than were our ancestors. We have not the ponderous Flemish mares that once dragged the gilded coaches round the ring; but we have something that is infinitely better. "Majesty" alone, on state occasions, is the solemn, pompous, slow animal of old maintained; aud on grand occasions, when the eight cream-coloured long-tailed horses make their appearance, we may realise to ourselves a very improved style of animal to that which paced Hyde Park in the days of Queen Anne and the early Georges. For The fine horses of sixteen hands to be seen in the carriages of our nobility, are of pure Yorkshire breed; but are procurable only through the London dealers. They are purchased by them at Howden and Horncastle fairs, and by them only, as the traders will not sell to strangers unless they will take them in lots of all sizes and colours. This the London dealer can afford to do, sorting them afterwards according to the requirements of his customers. An individual wishing to pick a pair for his own use, would find himself shut out of the market by this practice. A perfect match of these Yorkshire carriagehorses, of a bright bay colour mottled with black, is looked upon by the London dealer just as a fine diamond or a pure pearl would be by the precious-stone dealer. They know their value, and that ultimately they will be purchased; hence the perfect indifference they evince towards the general purchaser who may happen to see them in his stable. Such men look upon a pair of such horses, if they are lucky enough to obtain them, as the great advertisement of their lives. We question if they would sell them at any price to a mere millionaire without position in society. He must have money, it is true; but he also wants position for his horses. His ambition is, that they shall form part of the establishment of a leader of ton, because he knows that their beauty will then be seen by the best class of people, and that his reputation will thereby be established. Such horses-and we see many such in the drive-are often sold as high as a thousand guineas the pair. Of old, as we have said, the run was all upon Flemish horses-it is now wholly upon English animals ; and in this the public taste of Europe has decidedly shown a vast improvement. In Paris and Vienna we often see equipages that are second to none, even in England; but, upon inquiry, we invariably find that they are imported from this country. As fortunes, how ever, are not so great in France as in England, it often happens that these equipages flourish only for a brief season, when the horses fall again into the hands of the English dealer, who is invariably looking out for firstclass animals but not to sell again to other Parisians, as horses once well known do not change hands in Paris-the leaders of the fashion there considering it not the thing to purchase of each other. Majesty are the dappled grey ponies used for the Highland excursions of herself and family; and apparently the Prince of Wales has taken up the taste, as we find him driving the same class of grey cobs-models of their kind. There are certain horses in the royal stud, however, which are unique; for instance, the cream-coloured horses which are employed on state occasions by the sovereign. These animals, first introduced by the Hanoverian kings, are a special product of Hanover and the adjacent countries. The breed is kept up most religiously in this country at the Hampton Court establishment. These horses look small in contrast with the great gilt coach they draw, but in reality they are tall, scarcely one of them being less than sixteen and ahalf hands, and they are proportionately strong, as the state harness for each horse, with all its furniture, does not weigh less than two hundredweight. These Hanoverians are, in fact, the last representatives of the old Flemish horses, once so fashionable. They are slow and pompous in their action, as befits horses destined to serve royalty on state occasions. Some of them, still in use, are upwards of twenty years old; but they take life easily, airing themselves in the riding-school in the mornings, and once a-year or so doing the heavy work of taking the old gilded coach with its august burden from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament and back, and then relapsing for a twelvemonth into laziness and oats. The preparation of the royal equipage for a grand state occasion is a real sight. The tails of all the royal steeds being properly adjusted (why should not horses of fashion, like their mistresses, wear false hair?), they are with some little trouble harnessed, for many of them are entire animals, and their mode of life inclines them to wax fat, and kick against the pricks. And now comes the important operation of mounting the state coachman on his box: this is by no means done by a spring and a jump; on the contrary, it is a very solemn and laborious affair. There must be no haste, no jerking, otherwise the magnificent posy in his button-hole will be displaced, and all the powder shaken out of the prim curls in his periwig. A ladder is procured, and he mounts to his seat at the top of the large vehicle, and there he sits, a It will be thought very naturally that the finest stud of all classes of horses is to be found in the Queen's stables. And probably in the days of George IV. this was the case, but at present the sovereign's tastes do not include horseflesh. Probably the influence of Prince Albert had a great deal to do with the neglect into which the royal stables have fallen. His Royal Highness neither knew nor cared anything about horseflesh, and the consequence is, that at the present moment there is scarcely a horse in the Buckingham Palace stables that can be considered first-rate, and many of them are shocking jades. The public had an opportunity of witnessing the second-perfect "bright poker" of a coachman, the rate character of the animals sent to convey the Princess Alexandra into London-animals that our leading nobility would not have in their stables. The riding-horses are of an inferior nature still; with one exception, those used by the Prince of Wales. Perhaps the best horses in the possession of Her postillions being really in command of the animals, in conjunction with the state grooms who walk beside them. It would certainly be a curious thing to estimate the cost of these annual promenades as far as horseflesh is concerned; what their keep and stabling and exercising comes to,-the whole stud we mean, out of which the eight are selected for the two hours' annual work. Certainly that short jaunt must cost something like 1000l. an hour. At the Hampton Court establishment all the Arab and other horses presented by Eastern princes to Her Majesty are kept. It really is almost as expensive as presenting elephants to the sovereign to send her these noble breeds: it is not etiquette even to give them away, and they are never put to any use, or killed when getting old. Theirs is a true life of ease, they are served by the most experienced grooms, have every want attended to, and live on in the full enjoyment of life until they are called away to the bourne from which no quadruped returns. What a contrast these noble brutes present in their lives to the meaner animals which are constantly passing through the hands of many masters! a horse, for example, that has some slight blemish, or fault of temper, or perhaps some disease which is ignorantly put down to the score of vice. These are the animals that suffer a martyrdom through life, and are yet worked as remorselessly as though they were all the time shamming. In nine cases out of ten, when any one has the misfortune to possess an animal so afflicted with temper or disease, he immediately gets rid of him, and leaves the purchaser to find out what is the matter. It has always been a mystery how it happens that the most honourable men, whose integrity in other matters is beyond reproach, cannot resist taking in even their dearest friend in the matter of horseflesh. It cannot be that they feel it less culpable to deal fraudulently in this article than they would in the matter of a house, or an estate, or a piece of merchandise; there must be, therefore, some difference in kind between the different articles under negotiation, which goes in the former case to their conscience, and we think that difference lies in the fact of a horse's similarity to man in his humour, tricks, and vices. The nearest approach to the laxity of morals with respect to giving a character to a horse, is that which obtains in giving a character to a servant. If a man parts with his groom because he has been saucy, or idle, or ill-tempered, or obstinate, he by no means, as a matter of course, says as much when asked to give his candid opinion respecting him by his new master; on the contrary, he charitably takes a part of the blame upon himself. He will say, "Well, perhaps I was a litle hasty myself," or "I spoke too sharp to him, knowing his hot temper; possibly his next master will be more considerate, and they will work well together." We are convinced that when a man gets rid of his horse for some supposed fault, the reason of his keeping back his motive for doing so arises in many cases from the same cause. "He bolted with me, it is true, but I was always a careless rider," or "he reared and nearly did for me, but the bit was too sharp." We make allowances for the horse as we do for the man, and believe that in new hands he will do well enough. This is a different thing from committing a deliberate fraud which must inevitably entail loss upon the next possessor-from passing bad money, for instance, or from issuing a forged cheque, or even from passing off wooden nutmegs or wooden hams for real and genuine articles. In these latter cases there can be no doubt of fraud; but when we consider how largely the equine race shares with us our good and bad qualities-how very similar, in fact, they are sometimes in their whims and capricesthere may be permitted a very wide margin for dispute as to who shall be debited with the real fault, the horse or his master; and as in this case the master has some interest in doing so, he liberally debits himself with the fault, and very often rightly. We say so much in explanation of what is termed the ordinary loose morality which exists between even the best friends in horse-dealing, because it is made an excuse for the dishonest practices of what are termed horse-copers, a set of clever vagabonds who live by swindling. The profession of horse-coping requires so much ability, and such a profound knowledge of human nature on the part of the adepts in the art, that it really is a pity that its professors don't find a higher field for their exertions. In a former paper* we have given the reader some insight into the professional London horse-coper, who works his trade by means of advertisements in the Times, drawing attention to some astounding prodigy of horseflesh to be sold, for next to nothing. There is another branch of the fraternity who attend fairs, and manage to gull the Queen's lieges in quite as clever, though not perhaps in so refined a manner. Their business is to buy good-looking screws and old horses, and so to do them up as to take in that class of person who is a thorough believer in his own superior knowledge of horseflesh. The ability with which these rogues will operate on old animals, and turn them into showy-looking steeds fit for any gentleman to ride, is really very great, and it would make their fortunes if they would only turn their attention to the getting up of the rich old dandies of the bygone era of George IV. The class of horse they are in the habit of • See page 2. |