THE BREEDS OF HORSES. 195 



horses chiefly imported and mingled in blood with the pre- 

 existing* race. 



Of the foreign horses early introduced into England, one 

 familiarly known as the White Turk was the property of 

 Mr. Place, the stud groom of the Lord Protector Cromwell. 

 Another was brought by the Duke of Berwick from the siege 

 of Budy in the reign of James II; and a third, the Byerly 

 Turk, became the most distinguished of all the foreign 

 horses of that period. He was the charter of Capt. Byerly 

 in the wars of William in Ireland about the year 1689. Of 

 the lineal descendants of this horse one was King Herod, 

 born in 1758, bred by His Royal Highness William, Duke of 

 Cumberland, brother of George II. This fine horse, on re- 

 tiring from the turf, was employed as a stallion, and got 497 

 winners at our various race-courses, computed to have gained 

 to their owners 201,505. 



In the later years of Queen Anne an Arabian had been 

 brought to England which tended to impress a new char- 

 acter on the English turf. This animal, the progenitor of 

 some of the finest horses that have perhaps existed in the 

 world, was purchased at Aleppo by a merchant, the brother 

 of Mr. Darley of Yorkshire. He was supposed to have been 

 of the Desert breed, although his precise lineage was not de- 

 termined. He got The Devonshire, or Flying Childers, and 

 another horse termed Bartlett's Childers, who was never 

 trained, but who was the ancestor of Eclipse, one of the most 

 remarkable horses of which we have any record. 



The Devonshire, or Flying Childers, born in 1715, was so 

 named from his breeder, Mr. Leonard Childers, of Carr 

 House, near Doncaster, from whom he was purchased when 

 young by the Duke of Devonshire. He was a chestnut horse, 

 with four white legs. He was of noble form, of matchless 

 courage, and the fleetest horse that had ever been upon the 

 English turf. 



Eclipse was got by Marske, a grandson of Bartlett's Child- 

 ers, out of Spiletta. He was foaled in the year 1764, during- 

 the eclipse of that year, from which circumstance he took 

 his name. He was bred by the Duke of Cumberland, and on 

 the death of that prince was sold to Mr. Wildman, a sales- 



