MARKHAM] 
BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY 
381 
of Cottam, Notts. He was well connected, both Sir John 
Harington and Anthony Babington being first cousins of 
his father. 
He followed first the profession of arms in the Low 
Countries, and had a captaincy under the Earl of Essex in 
Ireland. Later he turned to literature, apparently for a 
means of subsistence. He was acquainted with many 
languages, and was a practical student of horse-breeding 
and agriculture. He was the owner of valuable horses, and 
is said to have imported the first Arab horse. His industry 
was prodigious and his literary output very large, but his 
books had the demerit of repeating themselves, while his 
practice of reissuing unsold copies of his previous works 
under new titles was much to be regretted. He wrote also 
many works in verse. Harte says of him that “ he appears 
to be the first English writer who deserves to be called a 
hackney writer. All subjects seem to have been alike easy 
to him ; yet as his thefts were innumerable, he has now and 
then stolen some very good things, and in great measure 
preserved their memory from perishing.” 
The date of his death is not certainly known, but he was 
buried at St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, on February 3, 1636-37. 
1595. [Edited by.] The Gentlemans Academie | or, | The Booke of S. 
Albans : | Containing three most exact and excellent Bookes : | 
The first of Hawking [etc. 2 lines] | compiled by Iuliana Barnes, 
in the yere from the | Incarnation of Christ I486. | And now 
reduced into a better method, | by G. M. | [colophon] London : 
Printed for Humfrey Lownes, and are to be | sold at his shop in 
Paules Church-yard. | 1595. 
Collation — 1 vol. sm. 4to. Title + 2 prelim. 11. with dedic. + 
95 fols. [fols. 25-8 blank (or omitted)], followed by separate title 
to treatise on hunting ; fols. 39-40 blank, followed by separate 
title to Booke of Armorie. 
1611. Country Contentments : | Or, The | Husbandmans | Recreations. | 
Contayning the wholsome | Experiences in which any man ought 
to Recreate | himself e, after the toyle of more serious businesse. 
| As namely, Hunting, Hawking, Coursing | [etc. 3 lines.] | By 
G. M. | London, [etc.] : 1611. 
1 vol. sm. 4to. Pt. I. only relates to our subject, chap. v. 
treating of the “ Hawking with all sorts of Hawkes, and the whole 
