I wonder what there is, new and strange, that you wouldn't lionize, as you call it. Can you suggest any thing! It's not a hippopotamus, I suppose. I hear from my brother-in-law in the Zoological Gardens, that you are always pelting away into the Regent's Park, by thousands, to see the hippopotamus. Oh, you're very fond of hippopotami, ain't you? You study one attentively, when you do see one, don't you? You come away so much wiser than when you went, reflecting so profoundly on the wonders of the creation—eh?
Bah! You follow one another like wild geese; but you are not so good to eat!
These, however, are not the observations of my friend the Horse. He takes you, in another point of view. Would you like to read his contribution to my Natural History of you? No? You shall then.
He is a cab-horse now. He wasn't always, but he is now, and his usual stand is close to our proprietor's usual stand. That's the way we have come into communication, we “dumb animals.” Ha, ha! Dumb, too! Oh, the conceit of you men, because you can bother the community out of their five wits, by making speeches!
Well. I mentioned to this Horse that I should be glad to have his opinions and experiences of you. Here they are:
“At the request of my honorable friend the Raven, I proceed to offer a few remarks in reference to the animal called Man. I have had varied experience of this strange creature for fifteen years, and am now driven by a Man, in the hackney cabriolet, number twelve thousand four hundred and fifty-two.
“The sense Man entertains of his own inferiority to the nobler animals—and I am now more particularly referring to the Horse—has impressed me forcibly, in the course of my career. If a man knows a horse well, he is prouder of it than of any knowledge of himself, within the range of his limited capacity. He regards it as the sum of all human acquisition. If he is learned in a horse, he has nothing else to learn. And the same remark applies, with some little abatement, to his acquaintance with dogs. I have seen a good deal of man in my time, but I think I have never met a man who didn't feel it necessary to his reputation to pretend, on occasion, that he knew something of horses and dogs, though he really knew nothing. As to making us a subject of conversation, my opinion is that we are more talked about than history, philosophy, literature, art, and science, all put together. I have encountered innumerable gentlemen in the country, who were totally incapable of interest in any thing but horses and dogs—except cattle. And I have always been given to understand that they were the flower of the civilized world.
“It is very doubtful to me, whether there is, upon the whole, any thing man is so ambitious to imitate as an ostler, jockey, a stage coachman, a horse-dealer, or dog-fancier. There may be some other character which I do not immediately remember, that fires him with emulation; but if there be, I am sure it is connected with horses or dogs, or both. This is an unconscious compliment, on the part of the tyrant, to the nobler animals, which I consider to be very remarkable. I have known lords and baronets, and members of parliament, out of number, who have deserted every other calling to become but indifferent stablemen or kennelmen, and be cheated on all hands, by the real aristocracy of those pursuits who were regularly born to the business.
“All this, I say, is a tribute to our superiority, which I consider to be very remarkable. Yet, still I can't quite understand it. Man can hardly devote himself to us, in admiration of our virtues, because he never imitates them. We horses are as honest, though I say it, as animals can be. If, under the pressure of circumstances, we submit to act at a circus, for instance, we always show that we are acting. We never deceive any body. We would scorn to do it. If we are called upon to do any thing in earnest, we do our best. If we are required to run a race falsely, and to lose when we could win, we are not to be relied upon to commit a fraud; man must come in at that point, and force us to it. And the extraordinary circumstance to me is, that man (whom I take to be a powerful species of monkey) is always making us nobler animals the instruments of his meanness and cupidity. The very name of our kind has become a byword for all sorts of trickery and cheating. We are as innocent as counters at a game—and yet this creature will play falsely with us!
“Man's opinion, good or bad, is not worth much, as any rational horse knows. But justice is justice; and what I complain of is, that mankind talks of us as if we had something to do with all this. They say that such a man was ‘ruined by horses.’ Ruined by horses! They can't be open, even in that, and say he was ruined by men; but they lay it at our stable-door! As if we ever ruined any body, or were ever doing any thing but being ruined ourselves, in our generous desire to fulfill the useful purposes of our existence!