346 ON THE PRICE OF STOCK AND MEAT. 



horse ; in 1675 a colt costs 15 at Harting; in 1677 Magdalen 

 gives ij ios., New College 39 ics. for two. In 1678 

 Cambridge buys at zos. 5^., and in 1681 a gelding is bought 

 at Maidenhead for 2$ i6s. The general average is depressed 

 by the prices of 1682, when horses are bought in London, 

 some certainly for the cart, and the others of doubtful purpose. 

 It is not of course possible to discover at this distance and 

 with such slight hints as to the character, size and breed of 

 horses, whether any serious attempts had been made to improve 

 saddle and coach horses during the seventeenth century. We 

 do know that horse-racing, which had been an occasional 

 pastime in the early part of this century, became a regular 

 amusement at the end of it, and that Godolphin, the minister 

 of Charles, James, William, and Anne, was as famous for his 

 stud of racers as he was for the ability with which he managed 

 state affairs, and for the tenacity with which he clung to office. 

 But we can hardly guess as to the extent to which Arab 

 stock was brought into the English strain. The pictures of 

 the animals at the time seem to show that they were big 

 and lumpy, and that an easy-trotting or ambling horse was 

 worth describing as such in the meagre notices of a bursar's 

 account l . 



1 Since writing the above I have found among the Pepys papers in the Raw- 

 linson collection (A. Bodleian) some household accounts of the Secretary to the 

 Admiralty. One of these, dated October 1676, is a butcher's bill. In it suet is 

 6d. a pound, neck of mutton $d., a quarter weighing 15 Ibs. at ^d. ; beef the stone 

 (8 Ibs.) at is. 2d. ; pork is. $(., and gravy beef $d. a pound. This by the large 

 stone is $s. g\d. for beef, y. n^d. for pork. The same papers state that the navy 

 bought by contract as stores for garrisoning Tangier in Jan. 1664 9012 Ibs. beef at 

 3</., 550 Ibs. pork at 4^., 1530 bushels of peas at 6s., and 386 bushels of oatmeal 

 at ;j. 6f </. the bushel. 



