Oh, that cob! that Irish cob!—­may the sod lie lightly over the bones of the strongest, speediest, and most gallant of its kind!  Oh! the days when, issuing from the barrack-gate of Templemore, we commenced our hurry-skurry just as inclination led—­now across the fields—­direct over stone walls and running brooks—­mere pastime for the cob!—­sometimes along the road to Thurles and Holy Cross, even to distant Cahir!—­what was distance to the cob?

It was thus that the passion for the equine race was first awakened within me—­a passion which, up to the present time, has been rather on the increase than diminishing.  It is no blind passion; the horse being a noble and generous creature, intended by the All-Wise to be the helper and friend of man, to whom he stands next in the order of creation.  On many occasions of my life I have been much indebted to the horse, and have found in him a friend and coadjutor, when human help and sympathy were not to be obtained.  It is therefore natural enough that I should love the horse; but the love which I entertain for him has always been blended with respect; for I soon perceived that, though disposed to be the friend and helper of man, he is by no means inclined to be his slave; in which respect he differs from the dog, who will crouch when beaten; whereas the horse spurns, for he is aware of his own worth, and that he carries death within the horn of his heel.  If, therefore, I found it easy to love the horse, I found it equally natural to respect him.

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Of one thing I am certain, that the reader must be much delighted with the wholesome smell of the stable, with which many of these pages are redolent; what a contrast to the sickly odours exhaled from those of some of my contemporaries, especially of those who pretend to be of the highly fashionable class, and who treat of reception-rooms, well may they be styled so, in which dukes, duchesses, earls, countesses, archbishops, bishops, mayors, mayoresses—­not forgetting the writers themselves, both male and female—­congregate and press upon one another; how cheering, how refreshing, after having been nearly knocked down with such an atmosphere, to come in contact with genuine stable hartshorn.

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My curiosity had led me to a most extraordinary place, which quite beggars the scanty powers of description with which I am gifted.  I stumbled on amongst ruined walls, and at one time found I was treading over vaults, as I suddenly started back from a yawning orifice, into which my next step as I strolled musing along, would have precipitated me.  I proceeded for a considerable way by the eastern wall, till I heard a tremendous bark, and presently an immense dog, such as those which guard the flocks in the neighbourhood against the wolves, came bounding to attack me ‘with eyes that glowed, and fangs that grinned.’  Had I retreated, or had recourse to any other mode of defence than that which I invariably practise under such circumstances, he would probably have worried me; but I stooped till my chin nearly touched my knee, and looked him full in the eyes, and, as John Leyden says, in the noblest ballad which the Land of Heather has produced: