33 i COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



fashioned ; his crest is hie, only subject to thickness if he be 

 stoned, but, if he be gelded, then it is firm and strong. His 

 chyne is straight and broad, and all his limbs large, leane, flat, 

 and excellently jointed. For endurance, I have seen them suffer 

 and execute as much and more than I ever noted of any foraine 

 creation. I have heard it reported that at the massacre of Paris 

 (St. Bartholomew) Montgomerie, taking an English mare in the 

 night, first swam her over the river Seine, and after ran her so 

 many leagues as I fear to nominate, lest misconstruction might 

 tax me of too lavish a report. 



"Again, for swiftness, what nation hath brought forth the 

 horse which hath exceeded the English? When the best 

 Barbaries, that were in their prime, I saw them overrun 

 by a black Hobbie at Salisbury. Yet that Hobbie was more 

 overrune by a horse called Valentine, which Valentine, neither 

 in hunting or running, was ever equalled ; yet was a plain-bred 

 English horse both by sire and dam." 



Here we see two things : first, that the same horses were then 

 used in hunting, or, at any rate, trail-scents and in racing ; and, 

 secondly, that the English horses could then beat the Eastern 

 ones apparently as easy as they do now. The East changea 

 but little. I see no cause to believe that the Arab is either 

 better or worse than he was three hundred years ago ; probably 

 the best never left the desert then, or ever have done so since, 

 but those that did come to England we as easily disposed of 

 then as now. The horses that beat them must have had such 

 a turn of speed as would do the same now, and that speed no 

 hound could lead a four-mile train-scent, unless he was equal to 

 the pace fox- hounds can run at the present day ; neither would 

 any other hound have stood the bustling, should the horses a 

 little overpace him. 



I will give another instance. Let us take the match run off in 

 Egypt some years ago, and won by a mare called Fair IS'ell, formerly 

 the property of Mr. Edmund Tattersall, of Irish extraction and 

 unreliable pedigree, but supposed to be thoroughbred, there or 



