THE RACE-HORSE. 527 



this long period, Barbs, and Turks from the Levant, were the 

 horses chiefly imported and mingled in blood with the pre- 

 existing race. 



Of the foreign horses early introduced into England, one, 

 familiarly known as the White Turk, was the property of 

 Mr Place, the stud-groom of the Lord Protector Cromwell. 

 Another was brought by the Duke of Berwick from the siege 

 of Buda, in the reign of James II. ; and a third, the Byerly 

 Turk, became the most distinguished of all the foreign horses 

 of that period. He was the charger of Captain Byerly, in 

 the wars of "William in Ireland, about the year 1689. Of 

 the lineal descendants of this horse, one was King Herod, 

 born in 1758, bred by his Royal Highness William Duke of 

 Cumberland, brother of George II. This fine horse, on re- 

 tiring from the turf, was employed as a stallion, and got 497 

 winners at our various race-courses, computed to have gained 

 to their owners L. 201, 50 5. From the celebrity of Herod 

 and his stock, it is usual to call the descendants of the 

 Byerly Turk the Herod line of horses, and this distinction is 

 still recognised by English sportsmen. 



In the latter years of Queen Anne, an Arabian had been 

 brought to England, which tended to impress a new charac- 

 ter on the English turf. This animal, the progenitor of some 

 of the finest horses that have perhaps existed in the world, 

 was purchased at Aleppo by a merchant, the brother of Mr 

 Darley of Yorkshire. He was supposed to have been of the 

 Desert Breed, although his precise lineage was not deter- 

 mined. He got the Devonshire or Flying Childers, and 

 another horse, termed Bartlett's Childers, who was never 

 trained, but who was the ancestor of Eclipse, one of the 

 most remarkable horses of which we have any records. 



The Devonshire or Flying Childers, born in 1715, was so 

 named from his breeder Mr Leonard Childers, of Carr House, 

 near Doncaster, from whom he was purchased, when young, 

 by the Duke of Devonshire. He was a chestnut-horse, with 

 four white legs. He was of noble form, of matchless courage, 



