But of all Peter's rarities, he most valued a certain set of bulls,
whose race was by great fortune preserved in a lineal descent from
those that guarded the golden-fleece. Though some who pretended to
observe them curiously doubted the breed had not been kept entirely
chaste, because they had degenerated from their ancestors in some
qualities, and had acquired others very extraordinary, but a foreign
mixture. The bulls of Colchis are recorded to have brazen feet; but
whether it happened by ill pasture and running, by an alloy from
intervention of other parents from stolen intrigues; whether a
weakness in their progenitors had impaired the seminal virtue, or by
a decline necessary through a long course of time, the originals of
nature being depraved in these latter sinful ages of the world--
whatever was the cause, it is certain that Lord Peter's bulls were
extremely vitiated by the rust of time in the metal of their feet,
which was now sunk into common lead. However, the terrible roaring
peculiar to their lineage was preserved, as likewise that faculty of
breathing out fire from their nostrils; which notwithstanding many
of their detractors took to be a feat of art, and to be nothing so
terrible as it appeared, proceeding only from their usual course of
diet, which was of squibs and crackers. However, they had two
peculiar marks which extremely distinguished them from the bulls of
Jason, and which I have not met together in the description of any
other monster beside that in. Horace, "Varias inducere plumas," and
"Atrum definit in piscem." For these had fishes tails, yet upon
occasion could outfly any bird in the air. Peter put these bulls
upon several employs. Sometimes he would set them a roaring to
fright naughty boys and make them quiet. Sometimes he would send
them out upon errands of great importance, where it is wonderful to
recount, and perhaps the cautious reader may think much to believe