8 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



Having regard to the appearance of a page which will generally be illustrated, I 

 have been glad to take the excuse thus offered to relieve the casual reader of a 

 superfluity of references and footnotes. These additions are insidious parasites upon 

 the main trunk of any narrative that is largely based on records of the past. They 

 provide the author with a cheap display of erudition at the expense of his best 

 readers' patience, and for their sakes I am content to risk any imputations of ingrati- 

 tude or petty larceny which maybe inspired by the more industrious rectitude of other 

 critics. Fuller details with regard to the pictures than I could print beneath them 

 have been preserved in the List of Illustrations that will accompany each volume, 



and as to written authorities 

 I may at once acknowledge 

 the deep obligation under 

 which, in common with every 

 other writer at this time of 

 day, I labour towards my 

 excellent and far more 

 worthy predecessors. One 

 only I will name here, be- 

 cause his storehouse of facts 

 is fuller, in my opinion, than 

 that of any other Turf his- 

 torian of that period. I refer 

 to Mr. J. P. Hore, whose 

 " History of Newmarket and 



his third volume, the end of 



the seventeenth century. None oi his readers can regret as heartily as I do that it goes 

 no further. His arrangement and plan are his own ; but after many efforts to beat him 

 on his own lines of research I have repeatedly had to confess that he has " got there 

 first," and though the leading idea of my own volumes is entirely different, my earlier 

 chapters are full of details which I owe to him ; and my own investigations have 

 only confirmed the points on which he gave an earlier reference. Of course 

 "there are Others." Their names are reverentially enshrined in the appendix to 

 the last volume for the admiration of posterity and the avoidance of all scruple 

 and doubtfulness. To the dead I here confess my debts. To the living I very 



Italian Saddle Hone ,,f ,ke Fifteenth Century. 

 By LionaiJo da Vinci. 



