xx Editor's Preface 



Newcastle, says, referring to his plays and poems : ' He would 

 soon have been forgotten in the walk of fame which he chose 

 for himself. Yet as an author he is familiar to those who 

 scarce know any other author from his book of horseman- 

 ship.' 1 Horsemanship was a study to which Newcastle had 

 devoted himself from his youth. His father, Sir Charles 

 Cavendish, ' kept him several masters in the art of horseman- 

 ship, and sent him to the Mews to Mons. Antoine, who was 

 then accounted the best master in that art.' As governor of 

 Prince Charles he also taught him to ride, and continually 

 celebrates the progress of his pupil (see the passages quoted 

 in the note to p. 121), to whom he afterwards dedicated his 

 Methode Nouvelle de Dresser les Chevaux. The same pursuit 

 filled the enforced leisure of his exile, and relieved its tedium. 



Early in 1648, towards the end of his stay in France, New- 

 castle contrived to obtain credit, and promptly bought a 

 couple of Barbary horses, ' resolving for his own recreation 

 and divertisement to exercise the art of manage '. After his 

 removal to Antwerp he increased his stable to eight horses, 

 ' in which he took so much delight and pleasure that, though 

 he was then in distress for money, yet he would sooner have 

 tried all other ways than parted with any of them.' No 

 stranger of note thought of passing through Antwerp without 

 coming to see Newcastle's riding-house. ' It would fill a 

 volume ', he writes, ' to repeat all the commendations that 

 were given to horses and horsemanship, by several worthy 

 gentlemen of all nations, High and Low Dutch, Italians, 

 English, French, Spaniards, Polacks, and Swedes, in my own 

 private riding-house at Antwerp, which, though very large, 

 was often so full that my esquier, Captain Mazin, had hardly 

 room to ride.' He relates in detail the compliments of some 

 of his more important visitors, tells us hew he himself mounted 

 and performed before them, whilst Spaniards ' crossed them- 

 selves and cried Miraculo '. And that, ' though the French 

 think that all the horsemanship in the world is in France ', 

 one said : ' Par Dieu, Monsieur, il est bien hardi qui monte 

 devant vous ', and another ' II n'y a plus seigneur comme vous 

 en Angleterre.' 2 The fruit of these experiences and studies 

 was published in 1658 at Antwerp under the title of La 



1 Royal and Noble Authors, iii. 175. 



2 Preface to the New Method and Extraordinary Invention, 1667. Some extracts 

 are quoted in the notes to pp. 60, 62. 



