WONDERFUL HORSE.
In the year 1609, an Englishman named Banks had a horse which he had trained to follow him wherever he went, even over fences and to the roofs of buildings. He and his horse went to the top of that immensely high structure, St. Paul’s Church. After many extraordinary performances at home, the horse and his master went to Rome, where they performed feats equally astonishing. But the result was that both Banks and his horse were burned, by order of the Pope, as enchanters. Sir Walter Raleigh observes, that had Banks lived in olden times, he would have shamed all the enchanters of the world, for no beast ever performed such wonders as his.
Fortunately, for men like Thorne, and Rice, and Franconi, who have been so successful in training the noblest animal in creation for the stage-representations of Mazeppa, Putnam’s Leap, &c., and for the various and fantastic tricks which have won so much admiration and applause, the present age is not disgraced by such besotted ignorance and superstition.