introduced into our island,
particularly the turnip, afforded excellent nutriment in winter to sheep
and oxen: but it was not yet the practice to feed cattle in this manner.
It was therefore by no means easy to keep them alive during the season
when the grass is scanty. They were killed and salted in great numbers
at the beginning of the cold weather; and, during several months, even
the gentry tasted scarcely any fresh animal food, except game and
river fish, which were consequently much more important articles
in housekeeping than at present. It appears from the Northumberland
Household Book that, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, fresh meat was
never eaten even by the gentlemen attendant on a great Earl, except
during the short interval between Midsummer and Michaelmas. But in
the course of two centuries an improvement had taken place; and under
Charles the Second it was not till the beginning of November that
families laid in their stock of salt provisions, then called Martinmas
beef. [68]

The sheep and the ox of that time were diminutive when compared with
the sheep and oxen which are now driven to our markets. [69] Our native
horses, though serviceable, were held in small esteem, and fetched low
prices. They were valued, one with another, by the ablest of those who
computed the national wealth, at not more than fifty shillings each.
Foreign breeds were greatly preferred. Spanish jennets were regarded
as the finest chargers, and were imported for purposes of pageantry and
war. The coaches of the aristocracy were drawn by grey Flemish mares,
which trotted, as it was thought, with a peculiar grace, and endured
better than any cattle reared in our island the work of dragging a
ponderous equipage over the rugged pavement of London. Neither the
modern dray horse nor the modern race horse was then known. At a
much later period the ancestors of the gigantic quadrupeds, which all
foreigners now class among the chief wonders of London, were brought
from the marshes of Walcheren; the ancestors of Childers and Eclipse
from the sands of Arabia. Already, however, there was among our nobility
and gentry a passion for the amusements of the turf. The importance of
improving our studs by an infusion of new blood was strongly felt; and
with this view a considerable number of barbs had lately been brought
into the country. Two men whose authority on such subjects was held in
great esteem, the Duke of Newcastle and Sir John Fenwick