Volume 1

Microcosm of London / [Anon].

Date:
[1808-1811]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Microcosm of London / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    introduced by man; that all these artificial refinements must tend to diminish, instead of increasing his felicity; and that, as a horse, he had much better be left- in a state of nature, than thus tortured into artificial refinement. The advocates for Swift’s system of the Houyhnhnms, in Gulliver’s Travels, admitting a horse to be superior to a man, even in his natural state, will unques- tionably be of the same opinion; and we must seek farther for the advantages to be derived by introducing a teacher of dancing, and a master of the ceremonies, to this noble and dignified animal. It is recorded, that at a much earlier period, a right worshipful mayor of Coventry wished to teach his horse good manners. Queen Elizabeth, in one of her progresses to that city, was met, about a mile before she arrived there, by the mayor and aldermen, who desirous of declaring the high honour which they felt she would thus confer on their city, employed the mayor to be their speaker. The mayor was on horseback, and (as the record saith) the queen was also on horseback, behind one of her courtiers. A little rivulet happening to run across the road where they stopped, the mayor’s horse made several attempts to drink; which the queen observing, told his worship, that before he began his oration, she wished he would let his horse take his draught. “ That, an please your majesty, he shall not,” replied the mayor, “ that he certainly shall not yet. I would have him to know, that it is proper your majesty’s horse should drink first,—and then, he shall.”
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