86 AGRICULTURAL WRULERS. 



the different operations of the farmer being noted with better care and 

 correctness. 



The name of Markham is always put forth as that of a leadiiig- 

 author in the history of British agriculture. Being an educated man, 

 he was qualified to take a comprehensive view of the subject, and to 

 range it beyond the narrrower sphere of those writers who preceded 

 him. He lived in the commencement of much civil commotion, but 

 did not see the fruits of the agitation; his was a generation that did 

 not grasp readily the vast influx of altered knowledge which burst upon 

 every department of employment trom foreign intercourse and the 

 enlargement of the human mind from the spread of education ; vet 

 Markham himself seemed in this direction to be in advance of his time. 



This ancient family trace their pedigree to a period before the 

 Norman Conquest, and the present representative is well known not 

 only as a doyen amongst Arctic explorers, but as president of the 

 Royal Geographical Society and author of several \ery useful literar\- 

 works. 



Gervase Markham appears to have been born in i56(S on the estate of 

 his father at Gotham, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, and, although 

 unendowed with great wealth, he was given a good schooling, and 

 became not only an excellent classical scholar, but well conversant with 

 the leading foreign languages, an advantage which enabled him to 

 prosper in the world and to become one of the chief worthies in a 

 family rich in clever men. He bore a commission in the army of King- 

 Charles I. during the Civil Wars, serving under the Earl of Essex in 

 Holland and also in Ireland, and was accounted a good soldier. Fighting, 

 however, does not appear to have been his forte, but there is no doubt 

 that during his travels he was a keen observer of Nature, as he became 

 a very voluminous writer. 



Beyond this fact his life was uneventful, being such as is the usual 

 career of a man whose breadwinner is his pen. His works show that he 

 delighted in masculine sports, was a gallant courtier, a practical husband- 

 man, and an authority upon horses; his knowledge of this animal led 

 him to be employed by James I. to obtain for his Majesty a pure bred 

 Arab charger, which he imported from the East, and obtained for it the 

 handsome sum in those days of £,500. 



Whilst in the service of the State as a yeoman, it is on record that on 

 mustering forces at Eagle Hall, Lincolnshire, for Charles I., it was 

 observed that Gervase Markham was mounted on the best horse. He 

 was married, but had no children, and died on P^ebruary 3rd, 1637, 

 according to our present day calendar, and was buried at St. Giles, 

 Cripplegate, London, where his remains rest in company with those of 

 such celebrated men as Milton, Fox, Frobisher, and Speed. 



Markham was able to write as well in verse as in prose, and did not 

 confine his productions to agriculture alone, for his name is attached to 



