ther by knotting up the tail, or by tying it with a leathern strap.

But whatever becomes of utility, the horse is certainly more beautiful, we are told, without his dangling tail. What a handfome figure he makes when he carries both his ends well! This is the conftant language of horfedealers, ftable-keepers, and grooms; and fuch language, tho' originating in tasteless ignorance, and mere prejudice, has drawn.over men of fenfe and understanding. It is inconceivable how delufively the eye fees, as well as the understanding, when it is fafcinated and led afide by fashion and cuftom. Afciated ideas of various kinds give truth a different air. When we fee a game-cock, with all his fprightly actions, and gorgeous plumes about him, we acknowledge him one of the molt beautiful birds in nature. > But when we fee him armed with fteel, and prepared for battle; we cry, What a fcare-crow! But a cock fighter, with all the ideas of the pit about him, will conceive, that, in this latter ftate, he is in his greateft beauty and if his picture be drawn, it must be drawn in this ridiculous -manner. I have often feen it.

Let jockies and ftable-boys, and cock-fighters keep their own abfurd ideas; but let not men who pretend to fee, and think for themselves, adopt fuch ridiculous conceits. In arts, we judge by the rules of art. In nature we have no criterion but the forms of nature. We criticize a building by the rules of architecture: but in judging of a tree, or a mountain, we judge of the most beautiful forms of each which nature hath given us. It is thus in other things. From nature alone we have the form of a horfe. Should we then feek, for beauty in that object, in our own wild conceptions, or recur to the great original from whence we had it? We may be affüred, that nature's forms are always the most beautiful; and therefore we ought to correct our ideas by hers. -If, how 3 N VOL. XIV. No. 84.

If

ever, we cannot give up the point let us at leaft be confiftent. we admire a horfe without a tail, or a cock without feathers, let us not laugh at the Chinese for admiring the difproportioned foot of his miftrefs; nor at the Indian, for do. ting on her black teeth and tattooed cheeks. For myself, I cannot conceive why it fhould make a horse more beautiful to take his tail from him, than it would make a man to clap a tail to him. With regard indeed to the natural beauty of a horse's tail, we want little reafoning on the fubject. In conjunction with his mane it gives him dignity.—It hides his ftraddling buttocks, which is a decency in nature we should admire rather than destroy.It forms a contraft among the legs. The four equal legs of every animal are its greateft deformity; and their fameness of courfe gives the painter the most trocble in the management of them. la many of her forms indeed, where nature does not seem to aim at beauty, fhe neglects this economy: but as if he meant the horfe for one of her most elegant productions, fhe has provided. for him in this refpect alfo, by giving him a graceful flow of hair, which hiding sometimes one leg, and sometimes another, introduces a pleafing contraft among them all.The accidental motion alio of the tail gives it peculiar beauty; both when the horfe moves it himself, and when it waves in the wind. The beauty of it indeed, to an unprejudiced eye is conspicuous at once; and in all parade and ftate horfes it is acknowledged: though even here there is an attempt made to improve nature by art, the hair must be adorned with ribbons, and the bottom of the tail clipped fquare, which adds heavinefs, and is certainly fo far a deformity.

The captain of an English men of war gave me an account fometime a go of his landing in one of the pirati cal ftates of Barbary, while his flip

anchored

anchored in the bay. He was received by the Dey (I think, of Tripoli) with great civility; and among other things, faw his fiables. They were lined with a very long, double row, of the moft beautiful Barb and Arabian horfes. He was truck with their beauty, to which their grand flowing tails, combed, and oiled in the niceft manner, were no little addition. As he continued his walk through the ftud, he came to a couple of horfes with nag-tails. Cinquiring into their history, he found they were Eng. lifh horfes, which had been prefented to the Dey. The horfes themfelves were fit to appear any where; but the contraft of their tails, he thought, in fuch company, made fo very trange and difgraceful an appearance, that he was afhamed of his countrymen. The cafe was, his eye having been thus accustomed to the beautiful forms of nature, had gotten rid of its prejudices; and being a rational man, he faw the matter in its proper light.

1 fhall conclude my remarks on this cruel mutilation, with an epigram by Voltaire.- That celebrated wit was in England bout the time when the barbarcus cuftom of docking horfes was in high fashion. He was fo fhocked at it, that he wrote the following verfes. which, it is faid, he gave to Lord Lyttleton.

Vous, fiers Anglois, et barbares que vous

have led men to cut off the tails of horfes, have led them alfo to cut off their ears. I fpeak not of low grooms and jockies; we have lately feen the ftuds of men of the first fashion, misled probably by grooms and jockies, producing only cropt horfes.

When a fine horfe has wide, lopping ears, as he fometimes has, without fpring or motion in them, a man may be tempted to remove the deformity. But to cut a pair of fine ears out of the head of a horfe, is, if poffible, a ftill greater abfurdity, than to cut off his tail. Nothing can be alledged in its defence. The ear neither retards motion nor flings dirt.

Much of the fame ground may be gone over on this fubject which we went over on the last. With regard to the utility of the ear, it is not improbable that cropping it may injure the horfe's hearing: there is certainly lefs concave furface to receive the vibrations of the air.I have heard it alfo affe: ted with great confidence, that this mutilation injures his health : for when a horfe has loft that penthoufe which nature has given him over his ear, it is reafonable to believe the wind and rain may get in and give him cold.

But if thefe injuries are not easily proved, the injury he receives in point of beauty may ftrenuously be infifted

on.

Few of the minuter parts of animal nature are more beautiful than the ear of a horfe, when it is neatly formed and well fet on. The contralt of the lines is pleafing, the concavity and the convexity being generally feen together in the natural turn of the ear : nor is the proportion of the ear lefs pleafing; it is contracted at the inferion, fwells in the middle, and tapers to a point. The ear of no animal is so beautifully proportioned. That of fɔme brafts, cipecially of the favage kinds, as the lion, and pard, is naturally rounded, and has little form. The eats of other animals, as the fʊx, and cat, are pointed, short, and thick

Thale

Thofe of the cow are round and heavy. The hare's and afs's ears are long, and nearly of the fame thicknefs. The dog, and wine have flapping ears. The fheep, alone has ears that can compare with the horfe. The ear of the horse receives great beauty alfo from its colour, as well as form. The ears of bay and grey horfes are gener-, ally tipped with black, which melts into the colour of the head. But the ear of the horse receives its greatcft beauty from motion. The ear of no animal has that vibrating power. The ears of a fpirited horfe are continually in motion; quivering, and darting their fharp points towards every object that prefents: and the action is ftill more beautiful, when the ears are fo well fet on, that the points are drawn nearly together. Virgil, who. was amongst the most accurate obfervers of nature, takes notice of this quivering motion in the ears of a horfe. -Si qua fonum procul arma dedere, Stare loco nefcit; micat auribus The fame word which he ufes here to exprefs the motion of a horfe's ears, he ufes elfe where to exprefs the gleaming of arms, the glittering of a gem, and the vibrating motion of a ferpent's tongue. But it is not only the quivering motion of the horfe's ears that we admire, we admire them a fo as the interpreters of his paffions; particularly of fear, which fome denominate

courage; and of anger or malice. The former he expreffes by darting them forward; the latter, by laying them back.

This digreffion hath carried me much farther than I intended; but the mutilation of the tail and ears of this noble animal is fo offenfive to reafon and common fenfe, that I have been imperceptibly led on by my indignation. Tho' nothing I can fay on the fabject, I am well perfuaded, can weigh against the authority of grooms and jockies, fo as to make a general reform; yet if, here and there, a fmall party could be raised in oppofition to this ftrange custom, it might in time obtain fashion on its fide. We commonly fuppofe, that when mankind in general agree in a point, there is truth. I believe no nation upon earth, except the English, have the custom among them, of docking, nicking, and cropping their horfes. The wisdom too of all antiquity decides fully against the practice. Inftances perhaps might be found in the bas-reliefs of the Antonine column, and other remains of Roman antiquity, both of the cropt ear and of the hogged-mane, (which I take for granted were never practitled except in cafes of defect,) but I am perfuaded, no one inftance can be found in all the remains of Grecian, or Roman antiquity, of a Short dock, or a nag-tail.

wonderful progrefs in industry, population, and opulence.

Marfeilles, fince united to France, though locally part of Provence, is detached from it in regard to jurifdiction and the adminiftration of government. They elect their own magiftrates, who have fufficient revenues and powers for internal police and good order. The fubfidies annually impofed by the king's edicts vary according to public exigencies, and are proportioned at certain fixed and established rates, on the different diftricts and communities of the whole province.The proportion laid on this city is nearly one third of the whole fublidy. -It is not levied by arbitrary or difcretionary powers of a farmer-general, but by équitable and moderate rules of valuation, long established, and under the authority of their own magiftrates, which is exercifed without either grievance or complaint.

No perion here will admit that the government of France is an abfolute and defpotic monarchy,and, in fact, no great city in Europe enjoys a milder administration of government, or feels a lefs burdenfome taxation.Really and fubitantially they poffefs all the advantages, comforts, and bleffings of a republican ftate, without its diforders, and under the fteady effectual protection of a powerful monarch. -Indeed, there can be no reasonable ground to fuppofe or fufpect, that the fyftem of their free government, fo manifeftly beneficial to the state of France, fo well and fo long established, can ever be shaken or overturned, or that any king or miniftry will ever be fo mad as to opprefs and provoke a great community, whofe fuccefsful application to arts and induftry acquires ever-growing wealth to the whole kingdom from diftant nations; and whofe extenfive trade is the grand pilJar which fupports the maritime power

They reckon above two hundred thousand inhabitants;-yet the progrefs of building and population goes on rapidly. Though the Old Town is ill built, and indeed very nally, it is moftly inhabited by a numerous, ufeful, and uncorrupted body of people;-fifhermen, and their families.---They ftill preferve the fimple manners, induftry, and frugality of their` remote ancestors.-Strangers may eafily distinguish them from the reit of the people by their drefs:-the ruddy freshness of their complexions, and by the appearance of their perfons, which are vifibly more hardy and robuft.They have been for ages paft all memory an incorporated body, and have enjoyed certain privileges, which are regularly confirmed by letters patent from every king after his acceffion. In particular, they chufe their own judges, who are four in number, and are called Les prudes hommes.

The charge of a law-fuit before them, by regulation ftrictly observe.i, cannot exceed two-pence halfpenny fterling to each party, and this fum is configned when they enter the court. Those ruftic natural judges, felected by the people subject to their jurifdiction, have maintained an uniform reputation for the good fenfe and integrity of their determinations. I have an engagement to vifit their court foon, and may fet down farther remarks concerning them.

The New Town is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful in the world; the

ftrects