c. IGGl.] HARE PARK. 235 



was a tax to the crown formerly imposed on houses. 

 By the Statute 14 Charles II. chapter 2, every hearth 

 and stove of every dwelling or other house, within 

 England and Wales (except such as pay not to 

 church and poor), was chargeable with two shillings 

 per annum, payable at Michaelmas and Lady-day, 

 to the king and his heirs and successors, etc., which 

 payment was commonly called chimney-money. This 

 tax, being much complained of as burdensome to 

 the people, w^as abolished, and others imposed in its 

 stead, among which that on windows has by some 

 been esteemed equally grievous. 



Dr. Fuller, in his " History of the Worthies of 

 England," published in 1662, curiously enough, does 

 not mention horse-racing in his description of Cam- 

 bridgeshire. He pays a high tribute to the eels 

 produced in that county, and only incidentally refers to 

 Newmarket thus : " Hares. Though these are found 

 in all counties, yet because lately there was in this 

 Shire an Hare-Park nigh New-Market, preserved for 

 the King's game, let them here be particularly men- 

 tioned. Some prefer their sport in hunting before 

 their flesh for eating, as accounting it melancholick 

 meat, and hard to be digested, though others think all 

 the hardness is how to come by it. All the might 

 of this silly creature is in the flight thereof, and I 

 remember the answer which a school-boy returned 

 in a latine distick, being demanded the reason why 

 Hares were so fearfull — 



Cur metuunt lepores ? Terrestris, nempe, marinus, 

 yEthereus quod sit, tart areusque caius. 



