When in the fifteenth century the noble Valencian Knight, Mossen Manuel Diez accompanied Alonso to the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, he there had occasion to remark of how great importance it was that the knights should be provided with good horses in time of war, that they might thereby be the better able to increase the honour and extend the dominions of their king; and that in time of their old age and the season of repose they should have for their recreation good mules. He resolved therefore to compose a book upon the nature and qualities of these animals, and the way of breeding them, and preserving them sound, and in good condition and strong. And although he was well versed in these things himself, nevertheless he obtained the king's orders for calling together all the best _Albeytares_ that is to say in old speech, farriers, horse-doctors, or horse-leeches, and in modern language Veterinary surgeons; all which could assemble were convened, and after due consultation with them, he composed that _Libre de Menescalià_, the original of which in the Valencian dialect was among the MSS. that Pope Alexander VII. collected, and which began _In nome sia de la Sancta Trinitat, que es Pare, è Fill, e Sant Spirit, tot hum Deu;_ and which he as _Majordom_ of the _molt alt e poderos Princep, e victorios Signior Don Alfonso, Re de Ragona,_ &c. set forth to show to _als jovents Cavellers, gran part de la practica è de la conexenza del Cavalls, e de lurs malaties, è gran part de les cures di aquells_. If Nobs had lived in those days, worthy would he have been to have been in all particulars described in that work, to have had an equestrian order instituted in his honour, and have been made a _Rico Cavallo_, the first who obtained that rank. CHAPTER CXLIV. HISTORY AND ROMANCE RANSACKED FOR RESEMBLANCES AND NON-RESEMBLANCES TO THE HORSE OF DR. DANIEL DOVE. Renowned beast! (forgive poetic flight!) Not less than man, deserves poetic right. THE BRUCIAD. When I read of heroic horses in heroic books, I cannot choose but remember Nobs, and compare him with them, not in particular qualities, but in the sum total of their good points, each in his way. They may resemble each other as little as Rabelais and Rousseau, Shakespeare and Sir Isaac Newton, Paganini and the Duke of Wellington, yet be alike in this that each had no superior in his own line of excellence.