Transcriber’s Note
A number of typographical errors have been maintained in this version ofthis book. They are marked and the corrected text is shown in the popup.A description of the errors is found in the list at the end of the text.Irregular and non-standard spelling has been maintained as printed.
BY T. S.
Professor of Horsemanship.
LONDON:
1793.
LADIES and GENTLEMEN.
PERMIT me to observe that the Horse is an animal, which, from theearliest ages of the world, has been destined to the pleasure andservices of Man; the various and noble qualities with which nature hasendowed him sufficiently speaking the ends for which he was designed.
Mankind were not long before they were acquainted with them, and foundthe means of applying them to the purposes for which they were given:this is apparent from the Histories and traditions of almost allnations, even from times the most remote; insomuch that many nations andtribes, or colonies of people, who were entirely ignorant, or had butvery imperfect notions, of other improvements and arts of life; and evenat this day3-* are unacquainted with them, yet saw and understood thegenerous properties of this creature in so strong a light as to treathim with fondness and the greatest attention, sufficiently to declarethe high opinion they entertained of his[4] merit and excellence; nay invarious regions, and in the most distant ages, were so far from beingstrangers to the many services of which the Horse was capable, as tohave left rules and precepts concerning them, which are so true andjust, that they have been adopted by their successors; and as all art isprogressive, and receives additions and improvements in its course, asthe sagacity of man at different times, or chance and other causeshappen and concur: so that having the Ancient’s foundation to erect ourbuilding, it is natural to suppose that the structure has received manybeauties and improvements from the experience and refinement of lattertimes.
It is generally supposed that the first service in which the Horse wasemployed, was to assist mankind in making war, or in the pleasures andoccupations of the chase. Xenophon, who wrote three hundred yearsbefore the Birth of Christ, says, in an express treatise which hewrote on Horsemanship, that Cyrus hunted on Horseback, when he had amind to exercise himself and horses.
Herodotus speaks of hunting on Horseback as an exercise used in the timeof Darius, and it is probably of much earlier date. He ...