CONCERNING THE GREAT HONOURS TO WHICH CERTAIN HORSES HAVE ATTAINED, AND THE ROYAL MERITS OF NOBS.
Siento para contarlas que me llama
El á mi, yo á mi pluma, ella á la fama.
BALBUENA.
There have been great and good horses whose merits have been recorded in history and in immortal song as they well deserved to be. Who has not heard of Bucephalus? of whom Pulteney said that he questioned whether Alexander himself had pushed his conquests half so far, if Bucephalus had not stooped to take him on his back. Statius hath sung of Arion who when he carried Neptune left the winds panting behind him, and who was the best horse that ever has been heard of for taking the water,
Sæpe per Ionium Libycumque natantibus ire
Interjunctus equis, omnesque assuetus in oras
Cæruleum deferre patrem.
Tramp, tramp across the land he went,
Splash, splash across the sea.
But he was a dangerous horse in a gig. Hercules found it difficult to hold him in, and Polynices when he attempted to drive him made almost as bad a figure as the Taylor upon his ever memorable excursion to Brentford.
The virtues of Caligula's horse, whom that Emperor invited to sup with him, whom he made a Priest, and whom he intended to make Consul, have not been described by those historians who have transmitted to us the account of his extraordinary fortune; and when we consider of what materials, even in our days, both Priests and Senators are sometimes made, we may be allowed to demur at any proposition which might include an admission that dignity is to be considered an unequivocal mark of desert. More certain it is that Borysthenes was a good horse, for the Emperor Adrian erected a monument to his memory, and it was recorded in his epitaph that he used to fly over the plains and marshes and Etrurian hills, hunting Pannonian boars; he appears by his name to have been like Nobs, of Tartaric race.
Bavieca was a holy and happy horse,—I borrow the epithets from the Bishop of Chalons's sermon upon the Bells. Gil Diaz deserved to be buried in the same grave with him. And there is an anonymous Horse, of whom honorable mention is made in the Roman Catholic Breviary, for his religious merits, because after a Pope had once ridden him, he never would suffer himself to be unhallowed by carrying a woman on his back. These latter are both Roman Catholic Houyhnhnms, but among the Mahometans also, quadrupedism is not considered an obstacle to a certain kind of canonization. Seven of the Emperor of Morocco's horses have been Saints, or Marabouts as the Moors would call it; and some there were who enjoyed that honour in the year 1721 when Windus was at Mequinez. One had been thus distinguished for saving the Emperor's life: “and if a man,” says the Traveller, “should kill one of his children, and lay hold of this horse, he is safe. This horse has saved the lives of some of the captives, and is fed with cuscuru and camel's milk. After the Emperor has drank, and the horse after him, some of his favourites are suffered to drink out of the same bowl.” This was probably the horse who had a Christian slave appointed to hold up his tail when he was led abroad, and to carry a vessel and towel—“for use unmeet to tell.”