Smollett is but one of the writers whose works are prolific of narratives of the kind, and some of these stories from being repeated so frequently came at last to be believed by a mass of the people.
Thus the tales of Sir Launcelot Graves' adventures, and of the acts that were attributed to Sir Launcelot's grotesque “mettlesome sorrel,” Bronzomarte, were believed by some actually to be true.
In point of fact this Sir Launcelot must have been a sort of Don Quixote who in the reign of George II. deemed it his mission to roam about England “redressing wrongs, discouraging moral evils not recognisable by law, degrading immodesty, punishing ingratitude and reforming society generally.”
Fables were related too of Robert Burns' mare, Jenny Geddes, while the poets also took possession of the palfrey which belonged to Madame Chatelet of Circy—the lady with whom Voltaire lived for ten or more years—and wove around it, also round its mistress, many romantic but wholly fictitious narratives.
Its name was Rossignol, and, according to one poet at least, Madame Chatelet fed the creature “on newly picked apricots, gave it milk to drink, and rode with a silken rein.” Rossignol is mentioned also in the history of Voltaire's life.
The story of Dr Dove's steed that was called Nobbs has the seal of Southey upon it, which may account for the animal's having been dragged into so many romances. At best, however, it was a foolish beast. Dr Dove, it may be unnecessary to remind the reader, is the hero of Southey's “Doctor.” The extent to which some of the famous stories of romance came in course of time to be woven into other stories is rather remarkable.
Thus we find Dr Dove described in three different stories as three distinct and different individuals not one of whom is recognisable as the same person and the original, while the horse, Nobbs, is spoken of in one story as a bay, in another as a brown, in a third as a black.
Is it possible that the authors of those stories can have read the original Southey? And if history of such small importance, comparatively, is thus corrupted, can one place implicit belief in many of the serious historical narratives? Rather one is tempted to believe the assertion of Pitt, “the boy Prime Minister,” when he declared in all seriousness that “nothing is so uncertain as positive truth.”
Most historians make mention of the charger that carried Wellington so well at Waterloo; yet the only statement with the impress of truth in this connection is that the horse died in 1835, aged twenty-seven. It was Wellington's favourite steed, and its name was Copenhagen. Of his other horses we read but little.