io6 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book II. 



In the Life of the eccentric Edward Lord Herbert of 

 Cherbury, written by himself, he refers to the evil in- 

 fluences of the turf in Enp;land at this period. 



Elizabeth. ^ 



"The exercises, he says, " 1 do not approve 

 of are riding of running horses, there being much 

 cheating in that kind ; neither do I see why a brave 

 man shou'd delieht in a creature whose chief use is to 

 help him to run away. I do not much like hunting 

 horses, that exercise taking up more time than can be 

 spared for a man studious to get knowledge : it is 

 enough therefore to know the sport if there be any 

 in it, without making it an ordinary practise : and 

 indeed of the two, hawking is the better, because less 

 time is spent in it : and upon these terms also I can 

 allow a little bowling, so that the company be choise 

 and good." He advocates the manege, swimming, and 

 duelling as necessary acccomplishments ; while the 

 " exercises " he wholly condemned " are dicing and 

 carding, especially if you play for any great sum of 

 money, or spend, or use or come to meetings or dicing 

 houses, where cheaters meet and cozen young gentle- 

 men of all their money." 



" A rural diversion \i.e. horse-racing] of a kind very oppo- 

 site to that of angling, may be considered, during the reigns 

 of Elizabeth and James, if we compare it with the state to 

 which the rage for gambling has since carried it, as still in 

 its infancy. It was classed, indeed, with hawking and hunting, 

 as a liberal pastime, and almost generally pursued for the 

 mere purpose of exercise or pleasure ; hence the moral satirists 

 of the age, the Puritans of the sixteenth century, have recom- 

 mended it as a substitute for cards and dice. That it was, 

 however, even at this period, occasionally practised in the 



