I04 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book II. 



" The progress of building in London, which was extremely 

 great under Elizabeth, filled up many of the old tilt-yards, 

 shooting-grounds, and race-courses around the city, 

 and curtailed many of the old facilities for manly 

 sports and exercises. The sedentary life thus enforced, joined 

 with a more luxurious mode of living, soon began to produce 

 some novel ailments, and the gout (then emphatically named 

 the Enemy') showed itself pretty plainly amongst the higher 

 classes of society. The active games of their forefathers were 

 now, indeed, exchanged for the cock-pit, the theatre, the bear- 

 garden, the eating-houses and taverns, dicing-houses, and 

 smoking ordinaries, which sprang up rapidly in every street. 

 To these places the buffoon and the juggler, with the masters 

 of motions (puppet-shows), now forbidden the stately palace 

 and the castle, naturally resorted, along with the poor crest- 

 fallen minstrel, sadly sunken into a common street-singer or 

 tap-room fiddler. These helpless classes, once the life of the 

 highest circles, were now ranked with rogues and vagabonds, 

 thieves and ruffians, or, still worse, with heretics and pagans, 

 liable to the severest and most merciless penalties. ... In 

 the country, hunting, hawking, and fowling were still followed, 

 and various devices were still used to allure the game of all 

 kinds. Hawking, indeed, was at its height during this period, 

 and fell gradually into disuse, partly from the great expense 

 of keeping falcons, and partly from the novel charms of the 

 fowling-piece. After the reign of Elizabeth the sport will 

 require in consequence no further mention." — "An Intro- 

 duction to English Antiquity, intended as a companion to 

 the History of England," by J. Eccleston, M.A., p. 314 

 (London, 1847).* 



" Horse-racing now commenced as a regular amusement, 

 and was favoured even by the puritans, who bitterly opposed 

 almost every other sport. Early in the reign of Elizabeth 

 the saddlers of Chester gave races, at which a silver bell, 



* For allusions to gambling, card-sharping, etc., in London at this 

 period, see Robert Greene's " Coosnage" and " Couny Catching '' (Lond. 

 4to., 1592, Black letter), intro., etc. 



