ii8 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book IX. 



adding that " If the Noblemen and Gentlemen would 

 take this to heart, as they have done, running of races 

 for bels (which I could wish, were converted to shoot- 

 ing at a marke with pistols on horseback for the same 

 bell;) they would be sufficient for Curassiers." * 



Burton,! in his " Anatomy of Melancholy," tells us 

 that, among the " disports of great men " in those 

 days, " Riding of great horses, running at [the] ring, 

 tilts and turnaments, horse-races, wild-goose chases," 

 although good in themselves, yet " many gentlemen, 

 by that meanes, gallop quite out of their fortunes." \ 



Turning from generalities to positive facts and 

 records of the rise, progress, and extent of the Turf 

 during the reign of Charles I. and, occasionally, during 

 the Commonwealth, we find race-meetings at New- 

 market, where the gold cup was run for at the Spring 

 meeting of i634,§ Frequent allusions have been made 

 to horse-races at Newmarket by numerous writers, but 

 this is, per se, the earliest authentic and irrefutable 

 occurrence of such on record (founded on contemporaiy 

 data) upon the famous Heath during the reign of Charles 

 I. As we have already seen, "hunting-matches" and 

 horse-racing are mentioned at Newmarket in the pre- 

 cedinof reio"n, but these events are surrounded with so 

 much ambiguity as to deprive them of the interest they 

 would excite if they had been more definitely recorded. 



* " The Advice of that Worthy Commander Sir Ed: Harwood." Lond. 

 1642, 4to. 



t Born February 8, 1577 : died January 8, 1640 (n.s.). 



X "Anatomy of Melancholy" (Edit. Oxon, 1621), Part ii. ; sec. ii.. 

 No. 4, p. 342. 



§ Steposf. 



