CHAPTER CXLIII.

A FEEBLE ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE THE PHYSICAL AND MORAL QUALITIES OF NOBS.

Quant à moi, je desirerois fort sçavoir bien dire, ou que j'eusse eu une bonne plume, et bien taillée à commandement, pour l'exalter et louër comme il le mérite. Toutesfois, telle quelle est, je m'en vais l'employer au hazard.

BRANTOME.             

Such, O Reader were the circumstances concerning Nobs, before his birth, at his birth and upon his naming. Strange indeed would it have been, if anything which regarded so admirable a horse, had been after the manner of other horses.

Fate never could a horse provide
So fit for such a man to ride;
Nor find a man with strictest care
So fit for such a horse to bear.1

1 CHURCHILL.

To describe him as he was would require all the knowledge, and all the eloquence of the immortal Taplin. Were I to attempt it in verse, with what peculiar propriety might I adopt the invocation of the Polish Poet.

                Ducite Gratiæ
    E valle Permessi vagantem
    Pegason; alipedemque sacris
Frenate sertis.—Ut micat auribus!
Vocemque longé vatis amabili
    Agnoscit hinnitu! Ut Dearum
    Frena ferox, hilarique bullam
Collo poposcit. 2

2 CASIMIR.

Might I not have applied the latter part of these verses as aptly, as they might truly have been applied to Nobs, when Barnaby was about to saddle him on a fine spring morning at the Doctor's bidding? But what have I to do with the Graces, or the Muses and their winged steed? My business is with plain truth and sober prose.

———Io non so dov'io debba comminciare,
Dal capo, da gli orecchi, o dalla coda.
Egli è per tutto tanto singulare,
    Ch'io per me vò lodarlo, intero, intero;
Poi pigli ognun qual membro più gli pare. 3

3 BUSINI.

Stubbs would have found it difficult to paint him, Reginald Heber himself to describe him as he was. I must begin by saying what he was not.

And grant me now,
Good reader, thou!
Of terms to use
Such choice to chuse,
As may delight
The country wight,
    And knowledge bring:
For such do praise
The country phrase,
The country acts,
The country facts,
The country toys,
Before the joys
    Of any thing.4

4 TUSSER.

He was not jogged under the jaw, nor shoulder-splat, neck-cricked, pricked in the sole or loose in the hoof, horse-hipped, hide-bound, broken-winded, straight or heavy shouldered, lame in whirl-bone, run-away, restiff, vicious, neck-reversed or cock-thrappled, ewe-necked, or deer-necked, high on the leg, broken-knee'd, splent, oslett, false-quartered, ring-boned, sand-cracked, groggy, hollow-backed, bream-backed, long-backed or broken-backed, light-carcased, ragged hipped, droop-Dutchman'd, Dutch buttock'd, hip shot-stifled, hough-boney or sickle-hammed. He had neither his head ill set on, nor dull and hanging ears, nor wolves teeth, nor bladders in the mouth, nor gigs, nor capped-hocks, nor round legs, nor grease, nor the chine-gall, the navel-gall, the spur-gall, the light-gall, or the shackle-gall; nor the worms, nor the scratches, nor the colt-evil, nor the pole-evil, nor the quitter bones, nor the curbs, nor the Anticoré, nor the pompardy, nor the rotten-frush, nor the crown-scab, nor the cloyd, nor the web, nor the pin, nor the pearl, nor the howks, nor the haws, nor the vines, nor the paps, nor the pose: nor the bladders, nor the surbate, nor the bloody riffs, nor sinews down, nor mallenders, nor fallenders, nor sand cracks, nor hurts in the joints, nor toes turned out, nor toes turned in, nor soft feet, nor hard feet, nor thrushes, nor corns. Nor did he beat upon the hand, nor did he carry low, nor did he carry in the wind. Neither was he a crib-biter, nor a high-goer, nor a daisy cutter, nor a cut-behind, nor a hammer and pinchers, nor a wrong-end-first, nor a short stepper, nor a roarer, nor an interferer. For although it hath been said that “a man cannot light of any horse young or old, but he is furnished with one, two, or more of these excellent gifts,” Nobs had none of them: he was an immaculate horse;—such as Adam's would have been, if Adam had kept what could not then have been called a saddle-horse, in Eden.

He was not, like the horse upon which Petruchio came to his wedding, “possessed with the glanders and like to mose in the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of wind-galls, sped with spavins, raied with the yellows, past cure of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, swayed in the back and shoulder-shotten.”5 But he was in every respect the reverse.

5 TAMING OF THE SHREW.

A horse he was worthy to be praised like that of the Sieur Vuyart

Un courtaut brave, un courtaut glorieux,
Qui ait en l'air ruade furieuse
Glorieux trot, la bride glorieuse. 6

6 CLEMENT MAROT.

A horse who like that famous charger might have said in his Epitaph

J'allay curieux
En chocs furieux,
    Sans craindre estrapade;
Mal rabotez lieux
Passez a cloz yeux,
    Sans faire chopade.
La viste virade,
Pompante pennade,
    Le saut soubzlevant,
La roide ruade,
Prompte petarrade
    Je mis en avant.
Escumeur bavant
Au manger sçavant,
    Au penser très-doux;
Relevé devant,
Jusqu' au bout servant
    J'ay esté sur tous.

Like that Arabian which Almanzar sent to Antea's father, the Soldan,

Egli avea tutte le fattezze pronte
Di buon caval, come udirete appresso. 7

Like those horses, described by Mr. Milman in his version of the episode of Nala from the Mahábhárata, he was

                       fit and powerful for the road;
Blending mighty strength with fleetness,—high in courage and in blood:
Free from all the well-known vices,—broad of nostril, large of jaw,
With the ten good marks distinguished,—born in Sindhu, fleet as wind.

7 PULCI.

Like these horses he was,—except that he was born in Yorkshire;—and being of Tartarian blood it may be that he was one of the same race with them.

He was not like the horses of Achilles;

Ἐξ ἀφθίτων γὰρ ἄφθιτοι πεφυκότες
Τὸν Πηλέως φέρουσι θούριον γόνον.
Δίδωσι δ᾽ αὐτους πωλοδαμνήσας ἄναξ
Πηλεῖ Ποσειδῶν, ὡς λεγουσι, πόντιος. 8

Like them therefore Nobs could not be, because he was a mortal horse; and moreover because he was not amphibious, as they must have been. If there be any of their breed remaining, it must be the immortal River, or more properly Water-Horse of Loch Lochy, who has sometimes, say the Highlanders, been seen feeding on the banks: sometimes entices mares from the pasture, sometimes overturns boats in his anger and agitates the whole lake with his motion.

8 EURIPIDES.

He was of a good tall stature; his head lean and comely; his forehead out-swelling; his eyes clear, large, prominent and sparkling, with no part of the white visible; his ears short, small, thin, narrow and pricking; his eye-lids thin; his eye-pits well-filled; his under-jaw thick but not fleshy; his nose arched; his nostrils deep, open and extended; his mouth well split and delicate; his lips thin; his neck deep, long, rising straight from the withers, then curving like a swan's; his withers sharp and elevated; his breast broad; his ribs bending; his chine broad and straight; his flank short and full; his crupper round and plump; his haunches muscular; his thighs large and swelling; his hocks round before, tendonous behind, and broad on the sides, the shank thin before, and on the sides broad; his tendons strong, prominent and well detached; his pasterns short; his fet-locks well-tufted, the coronet somewhat raised; his hoofs black, solid and shining; his instep high, his quarters round; the heel broad; the frog thin and small; the sole thin and concave.

Here I have to remark that the tufted fetlocks Nobs derived from his dam Miss Jenny. They belong not to the thorough-bred race;—witness the hunting song,

           ‘Your high bred nags,
             Your hairy legs,
We'll see which first come in, Sir.’

He had two properties of a man, to wit, a proud heart, and a hardy stomach.

He had the three parts of a woman, the three parts of a lion, the three parts of a bullock, the three parts of a sheep, the three parts of a mule, the three parts of a deer, the three parts of a wolf, the three parts of a fox, the three parts of a serpent, and the three parts of a cat, which are required in a perfect horse.

For colour he was neither black-bay, brown-bay, dapple-bay, black-grey, iron-grey, sad-grey, branded-grey, sandy-grey, dapple-grey, silver-grey, dun, mouse-dun, flea-backed, flea-bitten, rount, blossom, roan, pye-bald, rubican, sorrel, cow-coloured sorrel, bright sorrel, burnt sorrel, starling-colour, tyger-colour, wolf-colour, deer-colour, cream-colour, white, grey or black. Neither was he green, like the horse which the Emperor Severus took from the Parthians, and reserved for his share of the spoil, with a Unicorn's horn and a white Parrot; et qu'il estima plus pour la rareté et couleur naïve et belle que pour la valeur, comme certes il avoit raison: car, nul butin, tant precieux fut-il, ne l'eust pu esgaler, et sur tout ce cheval, verd de nature—Such a horse Rommel saw in the Duke of Parma's stables; because of its green colour it was called Speranza, and the Duke prized it above all his other horses for the extreme rarity of the colour, as being a jewel among horses,—yea a very emerald.

Nor was he peach-coloured roan, like that horse which Maximilian de Bethune, afterwards the famous Duc de Sully, bought at a horse-market for forty crowns, and which was so poor a beast in appearance qu'il ne sembloit propre qu'a porter la malle, and yet turned out to be so excellent a horse that Maximilian sold him to the Vidasme of Chartres for six hundred crowns. Sully was an expert horse-dealer. He bought of Monsieur de la Roche-Guyon one of the finest Spanish horses that ever was seen and gave six hundred crowns for him. Monsieur de Nemours not being able to pay the money, une tapisserie des forces de Hercule was received either in pledge or payment, which tapestry adorned the great hall at Sully, when the veteran soldier and statesman had the satisfaction of listening to the Memoires de ce que Nous quatre, say the writers, qui avons esté employez en diverses affaires de France sous Monseigneur le Duc de Sully, avons peu sçavoir de sa vie, mœurs, dicts, faicts, gestes et fortunes; et de ce que luy-mesme nous peut avoir appris de ceux de nostre valeureux Alcide le Roy Henry le Grand, depuis le mois de May 1572 (qu'il fut mis à son service,) jusques au mois de May 1610, qu'il laissa la terre pour aller au Ciel.

No! his colour was chesnut; and it is a saying founded on experience that a chesnut horse is always a good one, and will do more work than any horse of the same size of any other colour. The horse which Wellington rode at the Battle of Waterloo for fifteen hours without dismounting, was a small chesnut horse.

This was the ‘thorough-bred red chestnut-charger’ mentioned by Sir George Head when he relates an anecdote of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Thomas Picton, who, contrary to the Duke's intentions, seemed at that moment likely to bring on an engagement, not long after the battle of Orthez. Having learnt where Sir Thomas was, the Duke set spurs to his horse; the horse “tossed up its head with a snort and impetuously sprang forward at full speed, and in a few minutes, ventre à terre, transported its gallant rider, his white cloak streaming in the breeze, to the identical copse distant about half a mile from whence the firing of the skirmishers proceeded. As horse and rider furiously careered towards the spot, I fancied,” says Sir George, “I perceived by the motion of the animal's tail, a type, through the medium of the spur, of the quickened energies of the noble Commander, on the moment when for the first time he caught view of Picton.”

This famous horse, named Copenhagen because he was foaled about the time of the expedition against that City, died on the 12th of February, 1836, at Strathfieldsaye of old age; there, where he had passed the last ten years of his life in perfect freedom, he was buried, and by the Duke's orders a salute was fired over his grave. The Duchess used to wear a bracelet made of his hair. Would that I had some of thine in a broche, O Nobs!

Copenhagen has been wrongly described in a newspaper as slightly made. A jockey hearing this said of a horse, would say, “aye a thready thing;” but Copenhagen was a large horse in a small compass, as compact a thorough bred horse as ever run a race,—which he had done before he was bought and sold to the Duke in Spain. “He was as sweet gentle a creature,” says a right good old friend of mine, “as I ever patted, and he came of a gentle race, by the mother's side; she was Meteora, daughter of Meteor, and the best trait in her master's character, Westminster's Marquis, was that his eyes dropped tears when they told him she had won a race, but being over weighted had been much flogged.”

He was worthy, like the horses of the Greek Patriarch Theophylact, to have been fed with pistachios, dates, dried grapes, and figs steeped in the finest wines,—that is to say if he would have preferred this diet to good oats, clean hay, and sometimes in case of extraordinary exertion an allowance of bread soaked in ale.

Wine the Doctor did not find it necessary to give him, even in his old age; although he was aware of the benefit which the horse of Messire Philippe De Comines derived from it after the battle of Montl'hery: “J'avoye,” says that sagacious soldier, “un cheval extremement las et vieil; Il beut un seau plein de vin; par aucun cas d'aventure il y mit le museau; Je le laissay achever; Jamais ne l'avoye trouvé si bon ne si frais.”

He was not such a horse as that famous one of Julius Cæsar's, which had feet almost like human feet, the hoofs being cleft after the manner of toes. Leo X. had one which in like manner had what Sir Charles Bell calls digital extremities; and Geoffrey St. Hilaire, he tells us, had seen one with three toes on the fore-foot and four on the hind-foot; and such a horse was not long since exhibited in London and at Newmarket.—No! Nobs was not such a horse as this;—if he had been so mis-shapen he would have been a monster. The mare which the Tetrarch of Numidia sent to Grandgousier and upon which Gargantua rode to Paris, had feet of this description; but that mare was la plus enorme et la plus grande que fut oncques veüe, et la plus monstreuse.

He was a perfect horse;—worthy to belong to the perfect Doctor,—worthy of being immortalized in this perfect history. And it is not possible to praise him too much,

                                  οὓνεκ᾽ ἀριστος
Ἳππῶν, ὅσσοι ἔασιν ὑπ᾽ ἠώ τ᾽ ἡέλιον τε: 9

not possible I repeat, porque, as D. Juan Perez de Montalvan says, parece que la naturaleza le avia hecho, no con la prisa que suele, sino con tanto espacio y perfection, que, como quando un pintor acaba con felicidad un lienzo, suele poner a su lado su nombre, assi pudo la Naturaleza escrivir el suyo, como por termino de su ciencia: which is, being translated, “Nature seemed to have made him, not with her wonted haste, but with such deliberation and perfection, that as a painter when he finishes a picture successfully, uses to mark it with his name, so might Nature upon this work have written hers, as being the utmost of her skill!” As Shakespeare would have expressed it—

                 Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, this was a Horse.

9 HOMER.

In the words of an old romance, to describe him ainsi qu'il apartient seroit difficile jusques à l'impossibilité, beyond which no difficulty can go.

He was as excellent a horse, the Doctor used to say, as that which was first chosen to be backed by Cain, and which the divine Du Bartas, as rendered by the not less divine Sylvester, thus describes,

With round, high, hollow, smooth, brown, jetty hoof;
With pasterns short, upright, but yet in mean;
Dry sinewy shanks; strong fleshless knees and lean;
With hart-like legs; broad breast, and large behind,
With body large, smooth flanks, and double chined;
A crested neck, bowed like a half bent bow,
Whereon a long, thin, curled mane doth flow;
A firm full tail, touching the lowly ground,
With dock between two fair fat buttocks drown'd;
A pricked ear, that rests as little space
As his light foot; a lean, bare, bony face,
Thin joule, and head but of a middle size;
Full, lively-flaming, quickly-rolling eyes;
Great foaming mouth, hot fuming nostril wide;
Of chesnut hair, his forehead starrified;
Three milky feet, a feather in his breast,
Whom seven-years-old at the next grass he guest.

In many respects he was like that horse which the elder of the three Fracassins won in battle in the Taprobanique Islands, in the wars between the two dreadful Giant Kings Gargamitre and Tartabas. Ce furieux destrier estoit d'une taille fort belle, à jambe de cerf, la poictrine ouverte, la croupe large, grand corps, flancs unis, double eschine, le col vouté comme un arc mi-tendu, sur lequel flottoit un long poil crespu; la queue longue, ferme et espesse; l'oreille poinctue et sans repos, aussi bien que le pied, d'une corne lissee, retirant sur le noir, haute, ronde, et creuse, le front sec, et n'ayant rien que l'os; les yeux gros prompts et relevez; la bouche grande, escumeuse; le nareau ronflant et ouvert; poil chastain, de l'age de sept ans. Bref qui eut voulu voir le modelle d'un beau, bon et genereux cheval en estoit un.

Like this he was, except that he was never Nobs furieux, being as gentle and as docile at seven years old, as at seventeen when it was my good fortune to know and my privilege sometimes to ride him.

He was not such a horse as that for which Muley, the General of the King of Fez, and the Principe Constante D. Fernando fought, when they found him without an owner upon a field covered with slain; a horse

tan monstruo, que siendo hijo
del Viento, adopcion pretende
del Fuego; y entre los dos
lo desdize y lo desmiente
el color, pues siendo blanco
dize el Agua, parto es este
de mi esfera, sola yo
pude quaxarle de nieve.

Both leaped upon him at once, and fought upon his back, and Calderon's Don Fernando thus describes the battle,—

En la silla y en las ancas
puestos los dos juntamente,
mares de sangre rompimos;
por cuyas ondas crueles
este baxel animado,
hecho proa de la frente,
rompiendo el globo de nacar.
desde el codon al copete,
parecio entre espuma y sangre,
ya que baxel quise hazerle,
de quatro espuelas herido,
que quatro vientos le mueven.

He did not either in his marks or trappings, resemble Rabicano, as Chiabrera describes him, when Rinaldo having lost Bayardo, won this famous horse from the Giant to whose keeping Galafron had committed him after Argalia's death.

Era sì negro l'animal guerriero,
Qual pece d' Ida; e solamente en fronte
E sulla coda biancheggiava il pelo,
E del piè manco, e deretano l'unghia;
Ma con fren d'oro, e con dorati arcioni.
Sdegna tremando ogni reposo, e vibra
Le tese orecchie, e per levarsi avvampa,
E col ferrato piè non è mai stanco
Battere il prato, e tutte l'aure sfida
Al sonar de magnanimi nitriti.

Galafron had employed

Tutto l'Inferno a far veloce in corso
Qual negro corridor.

Notwithstanding which Rabicano appears to have been a good horse, and to have had no vice in him; and yet his equine virtues were not equal to those of Nobs, nor would he have suited the Doctor so well.

Lastly, he was not such a Horse as that goodly one “of Cneiüs Seiüs which had all the perfections that could be named for stature, feature, colour, strength, limbs, comeliness, belonging to a horse; but withal, this misery ever went along with him, that whosoever became owner of him was sure to die an unhappy death.” Nor did the possession of that fatal horse draw on the destruction of his owner alone, but the ruin of his whole family and fortune. So it proved in the case of his four successive Masters, Cneiüs Seiüs, Cornelius Dolabella, Caius Cassius and Mark Antony, whom if I were to call by his proper name Marcus Antonius, half my readers would not recognize. This horse was foaled in the territory of Argos, and his pedigree was derived from the anthropophagous stud of the tyrant Diomedes. He was of surpassing size, haud credibili pulchritudine vigore et colore exuberantissimo,—being purple with a tawney mane. No! Nobs was not such a horse as this.

Though neither in colour nor in marks, yet in many other respects the description may be applied to him which Merlinus Cocaius has given in his first Macaronea of the horse on which Guido appeared at that tournament where he won the heart of the Princess Baldovina.

Huic mantellus erat nigrior carbone galantus,
Parvaque testa, breves agilesque movebat orecchias;
Frontis et in medio faciebat stella decorem.
Frena biassabat, naresque tenebat apertas.
Pectore mostazzo tangit, se reddit in unum
Groppettum, solusque viam galopando misurat,
Goffiat, et curtos agitant sua colla capillos.
Balzanus tribus est pedibus, cum pectore largo,
Ac inter gambas tenet arcto corpore caudam;
Spaventat, volgitque oculos hinc inde fogatos;
Semper et ad solam currit remanetque sbriatam,
Innaspatque pedes naso boffante priores.

That he should have been a good horse is not surprizing, seeing that though of foreign extraction on the one side, he was of English birth, whereby, and by his dam, he partook the character of English horses. Now as it has been discreetly said, “Our English horses have a mediocrity of all necessary good properties in them, as neither so slight as the Barbe; nor so slovenly as the Flemish; nor so fiery as the Hungarian; nor so aery as the Spanish Gennets, (especially if, as reported, they be conceived of the wind;) nor so earthly as those in the Low Countries, and generally all the German Horse. For stature and strength they are of a middle size, and are both seemly and serviceable in a good proportion. And whilst the seller praiseth them too much, the buyer too little, the indifferent stander-by will give them this due commendation.”10

10 FULLER.

A reasonably good horse therefore he might have been expected to prove as being English, and better than ordinary English horses as being Yorkshire. For saith the same judicious author, “Yorkshire doth breed the best race of English horses, whose keeping commonly in steep and stony ground bringeth them to firmness of footing and hardness of hoof; whereas a stud of horses bred in foggy, fenny ground, and soft, rotten morasses,—(delicacy marrs both man and beast,) have often a fen in their feet, being soft, and soon subject to be foundered. Well may Philip be so common a name amongst the gentry of this country, who are generally so delighted in horsemanship.”

Very good therefore there might have been fair ground for hoping that Nobs would prove; but that he should have proved so good, so absolutely perfect in his kind and for his uses, was beyond all hope—all expectation.

“I have done with this subject, the same author continues, when I have mentioned the monition of David, ‘an Horse is but a vain thing to save a man,’ though it is no vain thing to slay a man, by many casualties: such need we have, whether waking or sleeping, whether walking or riding, to put ourselves by prayer into Divine Protection.”

Such a reflection is in character with the 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 Ragona, &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.