writers as free as poffible of reftraint; that human liberty requires a reciprocity of opinion in all things; that Nature seldom exhibits perfect models; and that where the fund of difcretion is over large, the quantum of honesty is not always proportionate. I cannot help thinking it a queftion, much more consequential to the good morals and wellbeing of mankind, whether a writer has attempted to controvert or obfcure a general truth, than whether he has made free with this fyftem, or that opinion, however, or by whatfoever authority, it may have been fanctioned and established. After all, my mind is ftill fenfible of an anxiety, left my offering fhould be unworthy the public acceptance: here I will comfort myself with the good old faw, which warrants, that fomething is to be learned, even from the moft indifferent book; and farther, that it is fcarce poffible for a man tolerably acquainted with his subject, to write seven or eight hundred pages, without furnishing hints adequate to the value of fourteen fhillings, to a Reader interefted therein, Sentences, Sentences, faulty in their conftruction, and INTRODUCTORY Chapter-Defign of the work-Critical account of Veterinary A TREATISE ON HORSES. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. SHOULD HOULD an apology be held neceffary, for a new Treatise on Horses, fince we already poffefs so many fo many in our language, and several of them of universally acknowledged excellence, I beg leave to fubmit the following apologetical reflections to the judgment of the enlightened and impartial Reader. It is a common obfervation, of which I feel it neceffary to affume my fhare, that the Horse, of all animals the most valuable, because the most conducive to the use and enjoyment of man, has been, from the earliest times, confidered as an object deserving the most sedulous and benevolent attention in all civilized countries. That such observation will apply with peculiar force to our own country, is evinced by a race of Horfes adapted to every poffible purpose, VOL. I. B |