Hath the trick to blow up horse-flesh, as the butcher doth veal, which
shall wash out again in twice riding betwixt Waltham and London. The
trade of spur-making had decayed long since, but for this ungodly
tireman. He is cursed all over the four ancient highways of England;
none but the blind men that sell switches in the road are beholding to
him. His stable is filled with so many diseases, one would think most
part about Smithfield was an hospital for horses, or a slaughter-house
of the common hunt. Let him furnish you with a hackney, it is as much as
if the King's warrant overtook you within ten miles to stay your
journey. And though a man cannot say he cozens you directly, yet any
hostler within ten miles, should he be brought upon his book-oath, will
affirm he hath laid a bait for you. Resolve when you first stretch
yourself in the stirrups, you are put as it were upon some usurer that
will never bear with you past his day. He were good to make one that had
the colic alight often, and, if example will cause him, make urine; let
him only for that say, Grammercy horse. For his sale of horses, he hath
false covers for all manner of diseases, only comes short of one thing
(which he despairs not utterly to bring to perfection), to make a horse
go on a wooden leg and two crutches. For powdering his ears with
quicksilver, and giving him suppositories of live eels, he is expert.
All the while you are cheapening, he fears you will not bite; but he
laughs in his sleeve when he hath cozened you in earnest. Frenchmen are
his best chapmen; he keeps amblers for them on purpose, and knows he can
deceive them very easily. He is so constant to his trade that, while he
is awake, he tries any man he talks with, and when he is asleep he
dreams very fearfully of the paving of Smithfield, for he knows it would
founder his occupation.