“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.