354 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book VI. 



to see Sir Ric. horses that stode ther. (Here follows 

 a long account of an horse-race.)" ^^^ — Chetham Society, 

 vol. xiv., Journal of Nicholas Assheton, edited by Rev. 

 H. R. Raines, M.A., F.S.A., etc. 



^^^ The Asshetons derived their surname from the town of 

 Ashton-under-Lyne, where, according to the heralds of 

 former times, they were seated shortly after the Norman Con- 

 quest. Leaving the ancestors of the author of the " Journal " 

 at peace in their tombs for twenty generations, we find that 

 Nicholas Assheton was born in 1590, and that he died on 

 April 16, 1625. The Rev. H. R. Raines, in a brief memoir, 

 wrote as follows of this rustic Turfite : — 



"The utility of such a Journal to the writer is somewhat 

 doubtful, although its interest to posterity is unquestionable. 

 Why he should have recorded, without deploring, so many 

 deviations from propriety, and have condemned himself for 

 so much flagrant dissipation, without any expression of regret 

 for the past or intention of amendment for the future, is one 

 of those curious phenomena which admits of no explanation. 

 . . . Incessant amusements, or to adopt the phrase of a con- 

 temporary, ' huntings and such like journeys,' occupied so 

 large and extravagant a proportion of time tliat more impor- 

 tant matters would most invariably glide out of his mind, and 

 render him essentially and habitually a mere man of the 

 world, living within a circle of fox-hunters and rejoicing in 

 the possession of 'leathern lungs and nerves of iron.' Had 

 his lot been cast in times when Newmarket and Ascot were 

 places of fashionable resort, and the St. Leger and Dee 

 Stakes popular objects of ambition, it is tolerably clear that 

 the Turf would have ranked him among its brightest orna- 

 ments. His indisputable skill in hunting, shooting, racing, 

 coursing, hawking, fishing, and other kindred pursuits (in all 

 of which he was clearly ipse agmeii), must have been acquired 

 by laboriously converting the amusements into the business of 

 his every-day hfe." The reverend editor is wrong in many of 

 his deductions and an unfair critic. Mr. Harrison Ainsworth's 



