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