HENRY HYDE, EARL OF CLARENDON 265 



\ 100, and these were sent direct to Newmarket, 

 where the king was staying at the time. 



That the reports of the evil that is said 

 necessarily to follow in the train of racing were 

 in William's reign greatly exaggerated, as they 

 are to-day, may be gathered from a description 

 of the manners of the age to be found in the 

 diary and state letters of Henry Hyde, Earl of 

 Clarendon. 



Hyde, who died at Cornbury, in Oxfordshire, 

 in 1709, at the ripe age of seventy-one, tells us 

 that towards the close of the seventeenth century 

 " a man of the first quality made it his constant 

 practice to go to church," and that he could spend 

 the day in society with his family and friends 

 "without shaking his arm at the gaming-table, 

 associating with jockeys at Newmarket, or 

 murdering time by a constant round of giddy 

 dissipation, if not criminal indulgence." 



Other writers make statements practically to 

 the same effect, so it is safe to infer that the fore- 

 going description forms a true account of the 

 style of living in the age when the Turf reached 

 probably its zenith. There are, however, 

 historians who would have us believe that at no 

 period did horse racing flourish in this country 

 without bringing with it, as though by natural 



