benevolent and pious writer; and conveys indeed a solemn truth which ought always to be borne in mind. Its force will not be weakened though I should remark that the hero of a horse which I have endeavoured to describe may in a certain sense be said to afford an exception to David's saying: for there were many cases in which according to all appearance the patient could not have been saved unless the Doctor had by means of his horse Nobs arrived in time.

His moral qualities indeed were in as great perfection as his physical ones; but-il faut faire desormais une fin au discours de ce grand cheval; car, tant plus que j'entrerois dans le labyrinthe de ses vertus, tant plus je m'y perdrois. With how much more fitness may I say this of Nobs, than Brantome said it of Francis I.!

When in the fifteenth century the noble Valencian Knight, Mossen Manuel Diez accompanied Alonso to the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, he there had occasion to remark of how great importance it was that the knights

should be provided with good horses in time of war, that they might thereby be the better able to increase the honour and extend the dominions of their king; and that in time of their old age and the season of repose they should have for their recreation good mules. He resolved therefore to compose a book upon the nature and qualities of these animals, and the way of breeding them, and preserving them sound, and in good condition and strong. And although he was well versed in these things himself, nevertheless he obtained the king's orders for calling together all the best Albeytares that is to say in old speech, farriers, horse-doctors, or horse-leeches, and in modern language Veterinary surgeons; all which could assemble were convened, and after due consultation with them, he composed that Libre de Menescalià, the original of which in the Valencian dialect was among the MSS. that Pope Alexander VII. collected, and which began In nome sia de la Sancta Trinitat, que es Pare, è Fill, e Sant Spirit, tot hum Deu; and which he as Majordom of the molt alt e poderos Princep, e victorios

Signior Don Alfonso, Re de Rayona, &c. set forth to show to als jovents Cavellers, gran part de la practica è de la conexenza del Cavalls, e de lurs malaties, è gran part de les cures di aquells. If Nobs had lived in those days, worthy would he have been to have been in all particulars described in that work, to have had an equestrian order instituted in his honour, and have been made a Rico Cavallo, the first who obtained that rank.

WHEN I read of heroic horses in heroic books, I cannot choose but remember Nobs, and compare him with them, not in particular qualities, but in the sum total of their good points, each in his way. They may resemble each other as little as Rabelais and Rousseau, Shakespeare and Sir Isaac Newton, Paganini and the Duke of Wellington, yet be alike in this that each had no superior in his own line of excellence.

Thus when I read of the courser which

Prince Meridiano presented to Alphebus, the Knight of the Sun, after the Prince had been defeated by him in the presence of his Sister Lindabridis, I think of Nobs, though Cornelin was marvellously unlike the Doctor's perfect roadster. For Cornelin was so named because he had a horn growing from the middle of his forehead; and he had four joints at the lower part of his legs, which extraordinary formation, (I leave anatomists to explain how,) made him swifter than all other horses, insomuch that his speed was likened to the wind. It was thought that his Sire was an Unicorn, though his dam was certainly a mare: and there was this reason for supposing such to be the case, that Meridiano was son to the Emperor of Great Tartary, in which country the hybrid race between Unicorn and Mare was not uncommon in those days.

When the good Knight of the Sun engaged in single combat with the Giant Bradaman, this noble horse stood him in good stead: for Bradaman rode an elephant, and as they ran at each other, Cornelin thrust his natural spike