THE ENGLISH BREEDS. 251 



repeatedly introduced to form a breed with English 

 mares, without as yet any acknowledged advantage ; 

 he carried his views farther, and ventured to buy, 

 at the enormous price of five hundred pounds, an 

 Arab horse, from a merchant of the name of Mark- 

 ham. But the minds of the nobility and gentry were 

 still so strongly imbued with the old predilection 

 for what were then termed great horses, that is, 

 large and bony chargers for heavy-armed knights, 

 that his intentions were thwarted, chiefly by the 

 celebrated duke of Newcastle, who was thoroughly 

 enamoured of the Pignatelli * school of horseman- 

 ship, and wrote two works, which have remained 

 text-books on the continent, even down to the late 

 French revolution. He judged the Arab horse to be 

 a little bony animal of ordinary shape, and it hav- 

 ing been trained and found not to be fleet, he set it 

 down as good for nothing, and by his rank and 

 deserved reputation for knowledge, checked the pro- 

 gress of improvement for a great number of years, t 

 King James, however, was not discouraged ; he 

 bought a second horse that came from some part of 

 the north coast of Africa, of Mr. Place, who was 

 afterwards stud-master of Oliver Cromwell. This 

 horse was the celebrated, so called. White Turk, 



* Pignatelli was the person who, in the reign of Henry VIII., 

 first introduced at Naples the modern system of riding, or 

 manege. 



f* Buffon and Sonnini, with equal self-satisfaction and perti- 

 nacity, have inflicted a similar consequence upon their own 

 country. 



