30O THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book V. 



you ought ever precisely to keep ; Remembring that 

 these Pastimes are but ordain'd for you to enable you 

 for your Office, to which you are call'd by your Birth." 

 Indoor pastimes, such as cards, dice, chess, billiards, 

 although not profitable for the exercise either of mind 

 or body, should not be utterly condemned ; care being 

 observed to play fairly and not for high stakes, " for 

 otherwise neither a Mad Passion, nor Falsehood us'd 

 of Desire of Gain, can be call'd a Play." Heed should 

 be taken that, in such cases, the company consists of 

 honest persons, " not defam'd or Vicious ; " and beware 

 of comedians and actors, " for Tyrants formerly de- 

 lighted most in them, glorying to be both Authors and 

 Actors of Comedies and Tragedies themselves." 

 Curious advice, in sooth ! bearing in mind the well- 

 known fact of his Majesty having a mask performed 

 before him and his court, by command, on the Sab- 

 bath. And did not the British Solomon turn Inio^o 

 Jones into a stage-carpenter, and offered to create 

 Ben Jonson a Baronet, who would have been known 

 to posterity as the " Rare Baronet " if he had had the 

 funds indispensable to acquiring that great honour } 



Ben Jonson mentions the following race-horses upon which 

 wagers were made by the gallants of the day : Puppy, Pepper- 

 corn, Whitefoot, Franklin. In the "Alchemist " he sarcastically 

 refers to " the rules to cheat at horse-races." Fynes Moryson, 

 in 1617, mentions betting on horse-races "by no meane Lords 

 sonnes and Gentlemen." — "Itinerary," part i., p. 198. And 

 Markham cites the superiority of the Earl of Northumber- 

 land's ^^^ Grey Dallavell : Grey Valentine, " which dyed a 

 Horse neuer conquered." "The Hobbie of Mister Thomas 

 Carlentons ; and at this houre the most famous Puppey 



