PREFACE 



Nearly three centuries ago it was remarked by 

 Richard Brathwait, in his esteemed and now scarce 

 work, The English Gentleman, that recreations 

 might be of two kinds : those which give health 

 and strength to the body, as hunting, hawking and 

 the Uke, and those which refresh and stimulate the 

 mind, as when recourse is had to the use of books. 

 In a lengthy discourse on this subject, elaborated 

 with much argument and some anecdote, he 

 institutes a comparison between what he terms 

 "exercises of the mind" and "exercises of the 

 faculties of the body." The notion even at that 

 date (1633) was by no means new. The unknown 

 author of that much scarcer book, The Institucion 

 of a Gentleman, first printed in 1555, asserted that 

 " good exercise and honeste pastymes doo muche 

 proffyt both to the healthe of man, and recreation 

 of hys wytte ;" and after alluding to "hawking and 

 hunting as pastymes used of gentlemen which, in 

 their right kinds, are good and allowable," he 



