to remain for ever unknown, as he has lately
left the world without divulging it. His
son, who follows the same occupation, possesses
but a small portion of the art, having either never
learned its true secret, or being incapable of putting
it in practice. The wonder of his skill consisted
in the short time requisite to accomplish his design,
which was performed in private, and without any apparent
means of coercion. Every description of horse,
or even mule, whether previously broke, or unhandled,
whatever their peculiar vices or ill habits might
have been, submitted, without show of resistance,
to the magical influence of his art, and, in
the short space of half an hour, became gentle
and tractable. The effect, though instantaneously
produced, was generally durable. Though
more submissive to him than to others, yet they
seemed to have acquired a docility, unknown before.
When sent for to tame a vicious horse, he directed
the stable in which he and the object of his experiment
were placed, to be shut, with orders not to open
the door until a signal given. After a tete-a-
tete between him and the horse for about half
an hour, during which little or no bustle was
heard, the signal was made; and upon opening
the door, the horse was seen, lying down, and
the man by his side, playing familiarly with
him, like a child with a puppy dog. From
that time he was found perfectly willing to submit
to discipline, however repugnant to his nature
before. Some saw his skill tried on a horse,
which could never be brought to stand for a smith
to shoe him. The day after Sullivan’s
half hour lecture, I went, not without some incredulity,
to the smith’s shop, with many other curious
spectators, where we were eye-witnesses of the complete
success of his art. This, too, had been a troop-horse;
and it was supposed, not without reason, that
after regimental discipline had failed, no other would
be found availing. I observed that the animal
seemed afraid, whenever Sullivan either spoke
or looked at him. How that extraordinary
ascendancy could have been obtained, it is difficult
to conjecture, in common eases, this mysterious
preparation was unnecessary. He seemed to
possess an instinctive power of inspiring awe,
the result, perhaps, of natural intrepidity, in which,
I believe, a great part of his art consisted; though
the circumstance of his tete-a-tete shows, that, upon
particular occasions, something more must have been
added to it. A faculty like this would, in other
hands, have made a fortune, and great offers have
been made to him for the exercise of his art
abroad; but hunting, and attachment to his native
soil, were his ruling passions. He lived
at home, in the style most agreeable to his disposition,
and nothing could induce him to quit Dunhalow
and the fox-hounds.”
Phil’s journeys as a pig-driver to the leading seaport towns nearest him, were always particularly profitable. In Ireland, swine are not kept in sties, as they are among English feeders, but permitted,