364 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



of good horses meet to serve in the field to get a Neapolitan 

 stallion, if it be possible, if not let him take the high Almaine, 

 the Hungarian, the Flanders, or the Frizeland Horse, so that 

 he be of convenient stature well proportioned and meet for the 

 purpose. The mare should be of an high stature, stronglie 

 made, large and fair, and having a trotting pace, as the mares 

 of Flanders and some of our own mares be. For it is not meet 

 for divers respects that horses of service should amble." 



He thus admits the bad quality of the ordinary English 

 horses, which Topsail describes as amblers, whilst by recom- 

 mending the breeder to obtain, if possible, a Neapolitan 

 stallion he recognises as fully as did the Gauls in the second 

 century B.C., and the Arabs and the Turcomans of modern 

 times, that the surest way of improving the indigenous horses 

 of Europe and Asia is to keep constantly introducing North 

 African blood. But, in spite of warnings such as Blunde- 

 ville's, the breeding of great horses continued to decay. That 

 writer had himself noticed the breeding of horses for hunting 

 and racing in his own day, and this tendency greatly increased 

 under James I, to whose love of racing was due the importation 

 of the first Arabian horse into England, a circumstance to which 

 we shall presently return. No better proof of the decadence 

 into which had fallen the breeding of great horses during the 

 reign of James I can be found than the following extract from 

 the Breviary of Suffolk, written by Robert Reyce (a native of 

 Preston, near Lavenham, where he died in 1638), and which 

 he dedicated to Sir Robert Crane, of Chilton, near Sudbury, 

 February 9th, 1618\ 



" Among the many ornaments of this shire, I may not omitt 

 to speake here of the horse, for the breeding whereof this 

 country hath many apt places of most profittable vse, wherein 

 .some chuse the low and fruitful grounds, the fertility of which 

 soile being a rich black mould, they deem most fit for these 

 purposes ; butt experience teacheth that the low grounds 



1 The MS. is in the British Museum (Harl. 3373) and was published with 

 notes by Lord Francis Hervey in 1902 (Murray). I am indebted for this 

 extract to my friend Sir Ernest Clarke, M.A., St John's College, Cambridge. 

 The passage here cited is from p. 42 of the printed book. 



