FIRST CROSS. 17 



Montgomerie, taking an English mare in the night, first swam over 

 the Seine and after ran her so many leagues as I fear to nominate, 

 lest mis-construction should tax me ol' too lavish a report. 



" Again, for swiftness, what nation hath brought forth tiiat 

 horse w^hich hath exceeded the English ? When tlie best 

 Barbaries that ever were in their prime, I saw them overrunne by 

 a black hobbie at Salisbury ; yet that hobbie was more overrunne 

 by a horse called Valentine, which Valentine neither in hunting 

 or running was ever equalled, yet was a plain-bred English horse, 

 both by syre and dam. Againe for infinite labour and long- 

 endurance, which is to be desired in our hunting matches, I have 

 not seen any horse to compare with the English. He is of toler- 

 able shape, strong, valiant, and durable." 



30. — Such was the stock on which the Thoroughbred Horse 

 may be said to have been grafted. Barrett, who wrote a few 

 years after Markham, thus refers to the first cross with Eastern 

 blood : — 



"Althougii the Spanish Genet, the Irish Hobby, and the 

 Arabian Courser, are held both by Maister Blundeville and 

 Maister Markham to be the chief for pacing and neat action, 

 there is the bastard stallion begotten by one of them on our 

 English mares, which doth exceed either of them in toughness." 



31. — Both of these books, written in the reign of James I., 

 display much vigour of thought and independence of expression, 

 and bear internal evidence of being truthful. It is not so with 

 books published fifty years later. In a very pretentious book on 

 horsemanship, by Cavendish, who had been created Duke of 

 Newcastle by Charless II., both text and plates are absurdly 

 inaccurate. In such a book we of course read a great deal of the 

 virtues of the English monarch, and nothing of the virtues of 

 the English horse. In a book published at Eome, by an Italian, 

 under the patronage of the Pope, twenty-two years later, the 

 English horse is ignored altogether, although at the same time 

 even the Catholic King James II. knew the English horse to be 

 so superior to any other, that he sent over to England for hunters 

 to use in France. So much must we allow for the effect of 

 royal patronage and sectarian prejudices even in the history of a 

 horse. b 



