horse, the carriage horse, the cart horse, the hack, nor the hunter as they are to-day was then in use. There were instead, as Blundeville tells us, "the Turk, the Barbarian, the Sardinian, the Neapolitan, the Jennet of Spain, the Hungarian, the High Almaine, the Friezeland horse, the Flanders mare, and the Irish hobby." The same writer informs us that the hobby was "a pretty fine horse, having a good head and body indifferently well proportioned, saving that many of them be slender and pin-buttocked, they be tender mouthed, nimble, light, pleasant, and apt to be taught, and for the most part they be amblers, and therefore very meet for the saddle and to travel by the way." They were, however, "somewhat skittish and fearful, partly, perhaps, by nature and partly for the lack of good breeding at the first." There were also many kinds of home-bred horses of great popularity, the best of which were reared in Yorkshire. Though Gervase Markham asserts that "the true bred English horse, him I mean that is bred under a good clime, on firm ground, in a pure temperature, is of tall stature, and large proportions," it is true that most of the native breed had degenerated in size to such an extent that they were little better than ponies. "The great decay of the generation and breeding of good and swift and strong horses" is deplored
