106 
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare s Time . 
for a prize at a show than to the desert-born. The 
reference to the “ next grass ” is whimsically ont of place. 
Shakspeare was doubtless too well acquainted with the 
points of a good horse to seek instruction from a foreigner, 
but less likely still is it that the gallant Huguenot, Sieur 
du Bartas, had ever seen the English poem. Both writers 
may have derived their materials from some veterinary 
work of the time. The date of Venus and Adonis is fixed 
by critics at about 1593. The complete translation of 
the Divine Weekes was published in 1606, but portions of 
the book had already appeared. 
Owing to the state of the roads, which were highly 
unfavourable for wheeled traffic, horses were largely 
employed in England as a means of locomotion. Nicander 
Nucius, in his Travels through England in the sixteenth 
century, observes that the English horses were for the 
most part white. 
Thomas Fuller is not particularly enthusiastic about 
the English breed. Our English horses, he says— 
“ have a mediocrity of all necessary good properties in them; as 
neither so slight as the Barb, nor so slovenly as the Flemish, nor so 
fiery as the Hungarian, nor so airy as the Spanish gennets, nor so 
earthly as those in the Low Countries, and generally all the Herman 
horse. For stature and strength they are of a middle size, and are 
bothe seemly and serviceable in a good proportion. And, whilst the 
seller praiseth them too much, the buyer too little, the indifferent 
stander-by will give them this due commendation. Yorkshire doth 
breed the best race of English horses, whose keeping commonly in 
steep and stony ground bringeth them to firmness of footing and 
hardness of hoof. Well may Philip be so common a name amongst 
the gentry of this county, who are generally so delighted in horseman¬ 
ship.” ( Worthies of England, vol. ii. p. 491, ed. 1811.) 
Camden mentions an Irish variety of horse, 
with a special kind of pace :— 
“ They have likewise excellent good horses, wee terme the Hobies, 
which have not the same pace that other horses in their course have, 
but a soft and round amble, setting one legge before another very 
finely.” 
