there is an attempt made to improve

nature by art: the hair must be adorned with ribbons; and the bottom of the tail clipped fquare, which adds heavinefs, and is certainly fo far a deformity.

"The captain of an English man of war gave me an account fometime ago, of his landing in on of the piratical states of Barbary, while his hip anchored in the bay. He was received by the Dey (I think, of Tripoli) with great civility; and among other things, faw his ftables. They were lined with a very long double row of the most beautiful Barb, and Arabian horses. He was ftruck with their beauty, to which their grand flowing tails, combed, and oiled in the niceft manner, were no little addition. As he continued his walk through the ftud, he came to a couple of horses with nag-tails. On enquiring into their hiftory, he found they were English horfes, which had been prefented to the Dev. The horfes themfelves were fit to appear any where; but the contraft of their tails, he thought, in fuch company, made fo very ftrange, and difgraceful an appearance, that he was afhamed of his countrymen. The cafe was, his eye having been thus accustomed to the beautiful forms of nature, had gotten rid of it's prejudices; and being a rational man, faw the matter in it's proper light.

"I thall conclude my remarks on this cruel mutilation with an epigram by Voltaire.-That celebrated wit was in England about the time, when the barbarous cuftom of docking horfes was in high fashion. He was fo fhocked at it, that he wrote the following verfes, which, it is faid, he gave to lord Lyttelton.

Vous, fiers Anglois, et barbares que
vous êtes,
Coupent les tates a vos rois, et les

queues a vos bêtes.

Mais les François plus polis, et aimant les loix,

Laiffent les queues a leurs bêtes, et les tates a leurs rois.

"There is more indignation, than wit, I think, in these verses. Voltaire feems to confider docking a horfe, and killing a king, as equal crimes; which however is carrying the matter fomewhat farther, than the picturefque eye wishes to carry it.

"The fame abfurd notions, which have led men to cut off the tails of horfes, have led them alfo to cut off their ears. I fpeak not of low feen the ftuds of men of the first fagrooms, and jockies; we have late y fhion, mifled probably by grooms, and jockies, producing only cropthorfes.

"When a fine horfe has wide, Jopping ears, as he fometimes has, without fpring, or motion in them; a man may be tempted to remove the deformity. But to cut a pair of fine ears out of the head of a horse, is, if poffible, a still greater abfurdity, than to cut off his tail. Nothing can be alledged in it's defence. The ear neither retards motion; nor flings dirt.

Much of the fame ground may be gone over on this fubject, which

we went over on the laft. With re

gard to the utility of the ear, it is not improbable, that cropping it may injure the horfe's hearing: there is certainly lefs concave furface to receive the vibrations of the air. I have heard it also afferted with great confidence, that this mutilation injures his health for when a horfe has loft that pent houte, which nature has given him over his ear, it is reasonable to believe the wind and rain may get in, and give him cold.

:

But if thefe injuries are not eafily proved, the injury he receives in point of beauty may ftrenuoutly

be

be infifted on. Few of the minuter parts of animal nature are more beautiful than the ear of a horfe, when it is neatly formed, and well fet on. The contraft of the lines is pleafing the concavity, and the convexity, being generally feen together in the natural turn of the ear. Nor is the proportion of the ear lefs pleafing. It is contracted at the infertion, fwells in the middle, and tapers to a point. The ear of no animal is fo beautifully proportioned. That of fome beafts, efpecially of the favage kinds, as the lion, and pard, is naturally rounded, and has little form. The cars of other animals, as the fox, and cat, are pointed, fort, and thick. Thofe of the cow are round, and heavy. The hare's, and afs's ears are long, and nearly of the fame thicknels. The dog, and fwine have flapping ears. The fheep, alone has ears, that can compare with the horse.The ear of the horfe receives great beauty alfo from it's colour, as well as form. The ears of bay, and grey horfes are generally tipped with black, which melts into the colour of the head.-But the ear of the horse receives it's greatest beauty from motion. The ear of no animal has that vibrating power. The ears of a fpirited horfe are continually in motion; quivering, and darting their fharp points towards every object that prefents: and the action is ftill more beautiful, when the ears are fo well fet on, that the points are drawn nearly together. Virgil, who was among the most accurate obfervers of nature, takes notice of this quivering motion in the ears of a horse.

-Si qua fonum procul arma de

dere,

Stare loco nefcit; micat auribus The fame word, which he ufes here

to exprefs the motion of a horse's ears, he ufes elsewhere to exprefs the gleaming of arms; the glittering of a gem; and the vibrating motion of a ferpent's tongue.-But it is not only the quivering motion of the horfe's ears, that we admire; we admire them alfo as the interpreters of his pallions, particularly of fear,. which fome denominate courage: and of anger, or malice. The for mer he expreffes by darting them forward: the latter, by laying them back.

"This digreffion hath carried me much farther than I intended; but the mutilation of the tail, and ears of this noble animal is fo offenfive to reafon, and common fenfe, that I have been imperceptibly led on by my indignation. Though Nothing I can fay on the fubject, 1 am well perfuaded, can weigh againft the authority of grooms, and jockies, fo as to make a general reform : yet, if, here and there, a fmall party could be raised in oppofition to this ftrange cuftom, it might in time perhaps obtain fashion on it's fide. We commonly fuppofe, that when mankind in general agree in a point, there is truth. I believe no nation upon earth, except the English, have the cuftom among them, of docking, nicking, and cropping their horses,

The wifdom too of all antiquity decides fully against the practice. Inftances perhaps might be found in the bas-reliefs of the Antonine column, and other remains of Roman antiquity, both of the cropt ear, and of the hogged-mane, (which I take for granted were never practifed, except in cafes of defect, but I am perfuaded, no one inftance can be found, in all the remains of Grecian, or Roman antiquity, of a fhort-dock, or a nag-tail."

L3 HUMOUR

"The first equeftrian problem that I ever fet myself to difcover was this; "When by pulling the reins "you prevent a horfe from falling, "where is the fulcrum or prop? "and how is the horfe's centre of "gravity prevented from being "thrown beyond the base of his "legs?" I will not trouble you now with the particulars of this difficult investigation; but fhall only fay, that it turned out greatly to the honour of demipique faddles; which accordingly, in the Mathematical Elements of Riding, that I mean hereafter to publifh, I fhall recommend very strongly in a corollary.

"A learned ftudent in mathematics has long publifhed his ability and defire to conftruct breeches upon geometrical principles*.

"Mr. Nunn is certainly ingenious, and his breeches, a few falient angles excepted, admirable; but the artist who fhould make bridles, faddles, and other equeftrian paraphernalia, by the rules of pure mathematics, would render a much more praife-worthy fervice to the public, For if the flimfy leather of breeches require geometrical cutting, how much more neceffary muft it be to the tough hide which forms the bridle? And to what purpose will the geometry in the breeches operate, if the faddle, by which they are to be fupported, and whofe fuperfices they are to touch in as many points as poffible, be formed ungeometrically? But I forbear to expatiate on a matter as plain as an axiom of Euclid; trufting that whoever can perceive the utility of geometrical breeches, will readily argue,

Mr. Nunn's advertisement is as follows:

à fortiori, to the abfolute neceffity of geometrical faddles and bridles.

"Purfuing my principles, I have demonftrated what is the right line to be drawn by the mathematical rider in every difficult fituation. In afcending a horfe's back, at what angle to extend the moveable leg, while the fixed one is refted in the ftirrup: in leaping, how to regu late the ofcillation or balancing, of the body, by attending carefully to that fundamental point which is your center of motion: in ftarting, how to difpofe of the fuperflous momentum, and thereby to preferve in full force the attraction of cohesion between rump and faddle: in rearing, at what angle, formed by the horfe's back with the plane of the horizon, it is most adviftable to flide down over his tail; which, I maintain, is the only expedient that can be practifed with a mathematical certainty of being fafe: these and many other inportant fecrets, I am ready, at any time when called upon, to communicate. One I cannot even now withold, which is this: that there is no good or truly gen. metrical riding, unless the legs be extended perfectly in straight lines, fo o as to form tangents to the cylindrical furface of the horfe's body: in a word, to refemble, as much as poffible, a pair of compaffes fet aftride upon a telescope; which I conceive to be the perfect model of mathematical riding.

"But befides this application of pure geometry, it has often struck me, that too little ufe is made, in riding, of the principles of mixed mathematics. Confider, Mr. Gam

bado, the fix mechanical powers! the lever. the wheel and axle, the pulley, the inclined plane. the svedge and the fere; and reflect with what advantage all thefe may be applied to the ufes of horfemanfhip. By means of a les having an elevated fulcrum raised on the pommel of the fddle, an entire ftop might be put to the practice of falling; except where the practitioner fhould voluntarily take a tumble for the exprefs purpofe of ftudying the parabola, or hippopiétic curve. The subcel and axle is already applied in the ufe of horfes, though nt in any branch of horfemanfhip, except the driving of poft-chaifes; but is alfo found fo efficacious in preventing falls, that where a horfe has been used to that affiftance, it is net reckoned fafe to ride him without. The application of the wedge might, undoubtedly, very materially improve the art of fig. ging. The fere might, with advantage, be applied to the direction of the horfes head with more exactnefs, and confequently enable the rider to guide his courfe with mathematical accuracy. The inclined plane might happily be introduced to facilitate the backward flide of the rider at the time of rearing, as above mentioned. And a fyftem of panies, in the nature of Mr. Smeaton's, by giving the rider a force equal to the action for many thoufand pounds weight, might for ever put an end to the dangerous vice of running away.

By the ufe of the principles of aftronomy, I have invented a mode of taking the exact altitude of any horfe, at two obfervations, and am at pref nt at work on a * hippodromometer, to afcertain the velocity

of his courfe in the very act of riding.

But while I boast, and, I trust, with reason, of these discoveries, I muft candidly confefs that a rigorous attention to the theory has fometimes betrayed me into practical errors. When my horse has been pulling earnestly one way, my own intention being at the fame time to go another, I have pulled ftrongly at right angles to the line of his courfe; expecting, from the laws of compound motion, that we fhould then proceed, neither in the line of his effort nor of my pull, but in an intermediate one, which would be the diagonal of the parallelogram, of which our forces were as the fides; but have always found that this method produced a rotatory infread of a rectilinear motion. When a horfe has run away, I have to avoid the wafte of force in my own arms, calculated the neceffary diminution of it in his legs; but unfortunately, eftimating it as the fquares of the diftantes multiplied into the times, I was frequently dathed against walls, pitched over gates, and plunged into ponds, before I discovered that it is not as the fquares of the times, but merely as the times. I mention thefe circumftances by way of caution to other theorifts; not being at all difcou raged myself by fuch trifling failures, and hoping, by your affiftance, to convince the world that no man can ever become a perfect rider, unless he has firft made mathematics his hobby-horfe. You will pardon this innocent play of words on a fubject so ferious and believe me to be, Sir, with great esteem, "Yours, &c.

"HABAKKUK ANGLE."

POETRY,