In September, 1829, Mr. John S. Skinner commenced the publication of the first horse magazine that ever appeared in this country, and in the first number there appeared a steel engraving purporting to be executed by the famous Stubbs and to represent the great horse, Godolphin Arabian. Not many years afterward I came into possession of a copy of this publication from the beginning, and the sight of this picture always impressed me as the most ludicrous abortion of the likeness of a horse that could be conceived of. The neck was absolutely longer than the body, the legs were about strong enough for a sheep, and all over it lacked strength of both muscle and bone to a most absurd extent. When this picture appeared in London, some years before, it was laughed at by all artists as well as by all men who knew anything about the shape of a horse, as a monstrosity, and it was received in the same spirit on this side of the water; but it bore the name of a great artist and that was sufficient to secure the approbation of the unthinking and the unknowing. The only key to the origin of the horse, the only pedigree that can be given, must be found written in his own structure of bone and muscle and brain. A true delineation, therefore, of his form and shape became a matter of the highest moment, not merely to satisfy the curiosity of the curious, but as a study of the true sources of his wonderful prepotency. Sixty-five years ago a correspondent of Mr. Skinner’s magazine, referred to above, and a descendant of Mr. Samuel Galloway of Maryland, spoke of an oil painting of Godolphin Arabian that had hung in the hall at Tulip Hill from the days of his childhood as still hanging there, and said that it was wholly unlike the Stubbs engraving. Mr. Galloway was one of Maryland’s land barons, an enthusiastic horse breeder, and a successful horse racer. He was educated at Cambridge, I think; and if so, no doubt he saw Godolphin Arabian many times before he died, for he was within four or five miles of him, and his sporting instincts could not fail to take him to see so great a horse when so near at hand. As he was a young man of great wealth and great ambitions, it is quite probable he was on terms of friendly acquaintance, if not intimacy, with Lord Godolphin, and thus secured the oil painting from that distinguished friend himself. This theory is strengthened by the fact that the picture still bears the coat of arms of Lord Godolphin.