Olaus Magnus assigns sundry reasons why the Scandinavian horses were hardier, and in higher esteem than those of any other part of the World. They would bear to be shod without kicking or restraint. They would never allow other horses to eat their provender. They saw their way better in the dark. They regarded neither frost nor snow. They aided the rider in battle both with teeth and hoofs. Either in ascending or descending steep and precipitous places they were sure-footed. At the end of a day's journey a roll in the sand or the snow took off their fatigue and increased their appetite. They seldom ailed anything and what ailments they had were easily cured. Moreover they were remarkable for one thing, _Ch' à dire è brutto, ed à tacerlo è bello_—[5] and which, instead of translating or quoting the Dane's Latin, I must intimate——by saying that it was never necessary to whistle to them. [Footnote 5: RUCELLAI.] Nobs had none of the qualities which characterized the Scandinavian horses, and in which their excellencies consisted, as peculiarly fitting them for their own country. But he was equally endowed with all those which were required in his station. There was not a surer-footed beast in the West Riding; and if he did not see his way in the dark by the light of his own eyes like the black horse of the Trappist, and that upon which the Old Woman of Berkeley rode double behind One more formidable than the Trappist himself, when she was taken out of her coffin of stone and carried bodily away,—he saw it as well as any mortal horse could see, and knew it as well as John Gough the blind botanist of Kendal, or John Metcalf the blind guide of Knaresborough. But of all his good qualities that for which the Doctor prized him most was the kindness of his disposition, not meaning by those words what Gentlemen-feeders and professors of agriculture mean. “It is the Grazier's own fault,” says one of those professors, “if ever he attempts to fatten an unkind beast,”—kindness of disposition in a beast importing in their language, that it fattens soon. What it meant in the Doctor's, the following authentic anecdote may show.