-of Joseph's
chariot, or of Elijah's--of Achilles and Xanthus--Herminius and Black
Auster--down to Scott and Brown Adam--or Dandie Dinmont and Dumple.
That pastoral one is, of all, the most enduring. I hear the proudest
tribe of Arabia Felix is now reduced by poverty and civilization to
sell its last well-bred horse; and that we send out our cavalry
regiments to repetitions of the charge at Balaclava, without horses at
all; those that they can pick up wherever they land being good enough
for such military operations. But the cart-horse will remain, when the
charger and hunter are no more; and with a wiser master.

"I'll buy him, for the dogs shall never
Set tooth upon a friend so true;
He'll not live long; but I forever
Shall know I gave the beast his due.

Ready as bird to meet the morn
Were all his efforts at the plow;
Then the mill-brook--with hay or corn,
Good creature! how he'd spatter through.

I left him in the shafts behind,
His fellows all unhook'd and gone;
He neigh'd, and deemed the thing unkind;
Then, starting, drew the load alone.

* * * *

Half choked with joy, with love, and pride,
He now with dainty clover fed him;
Now took a short, triumphant ride,
And then again got down, and led him."

139. Where Paris has had to lead _her_ horses, we know; and where
London had better lead hers, than let her people die of starvation. But
I have not lost my hope that there are yet in England Bewicks and
Bloomfields, who may teach their children--and earn for their
cattle--better ways of fronting, and of waiting for, Death.

Nor are the uses of the inferior creatures to us less consistent with
their happiness. To all that live, Death must come. The manner of it,
and the time, are for the human Master of them, and of the earth, to
determine--not to his pleasure, but to his duty and his need.

In sacrifice, or for his food, or for his clothing, it is lawful for
him to slay animals; but not to delight in slaying any that are
helpless. If he choose, for discipline and trial of courage, to leave
the boar in Calydon, the wolf in Taurus, the tiger in Bengal, or the
wild bull in Aragon, there is forest and mountain wide enough for them:
but the inhabited world in sea and land should be one vast unwalled
park and treasure lake, in which its flocks of sheep, or deer, or fowl,
or fish, should be tended and dealt with, as best may