After a little peregrination through Norfolk, studying the “Norfolk Trotter” as then called, but since called “Hackney,” on his “native heath,” I reached Houghton Hall, in Norfolk. This grand old place was built over a hundred and sixty years ago by the famous Sir Robert Walpole, and at that time it was considered the most splendid structure, as a gentleman’s country seat, in all England. For many years it has been the property of the Marquis of Cholmondeley, but is not often occupied as a residence. Here too, I was lucky, for upon my entrance to the picture gallery, about the first object upon which my eye rested was the painting of the Godolphin Arabian, and the first impression was that there must be “spooks” around, for that seemed certainly the Maryland picture I was looking at. I had it taken down and removed to a good light, and there the whole mystery was removed. It is difficult to compare two peas. All you can say about them is that they were just alike, and that is all I can say about the Galloway picture in Maryland and the Houghton Hall picture in England. The paintings were the same size, and the pigments used were of precisely the same shades of color and quality. The colors were peculiar in the fact that the artist had used no varnish nor oil that would leave a shiny appearance. The Houghton Hall picture had a black, glossy margin all around it of about five inches in width on which the names of the most noted of his progeny were inscribed in gold letters, and at the bottom was this inscription: “The original picture taken at The Hills, by D. Murrier, painter to H. R. H. the Duke of Cumberland.” This explained the modest signature attached to the Maryland picture, which was a replica of the original. “The Hills” is the local designation of “Gog Magog Hills.” The word “original” not only implies that the picture was made from life, but that one or more replicas were made at the same time.
Here, then, in this picture, we have all that we know or probably ever will know of the origin and pedigree of this horse. It does not tell us what he was, but it does tell us in the most clear and unmistakable language what he was not. There is no feature nor element in his make-up that does not say that he was neither an Arabian nor a Barb. He was a stout, strong-boned, heavily muscled, short-legged horse. In his form and shape he was very far removed from an ideal progenitor of race horses, but he was that progenitor all the same. About forty years after his death Mr. Stubbs, who never saw the horse, brought out a painting of him which all artists laughed at as the picture of an impossible horse. This picture, however, was engraved on steel and became the standard representation of Godolphin Arabian, in England, till this day. Both these pictures are here given, and a comparison of many points makes it evident that Stubbs copied from the original of Murrier or from the painting by Wootton, which was probably also a copy of Murrier, and he followed his copy just as closely as he could while converting a big-boned, stout saddle horse into a long-necked, spindle-shanked race horse. By actual measurement the neck is longer than the body, but it is not necessary to point out the Stubbs absurdities, as they are apparent to every eye. It was simply an awkward and dishonest attempt to express in his form and shape such a pedigree as a great racing sire should have had. In these two pictures we have the real and the imaginary—the honest and the dishonest.
The search for this picture and then for its verification was a labor of many years. I never expected to find the horse’s origin, but the discovery of his likeness seemed to be in the bounds of a possibility that was finally realized. Murrier’s picture, as a mere work of art, is of no mean value. It contains within itself undoubted evidence that it is a true picture of a horse, and it is shown circumstantially that this horse was the great “unknown and untraced founder” of the English race horse, with nothing of the race horse in his appearance.
The name of this horse has been a misnomer ever since the day he fell into the hands of Lord Godolphin, and it has misled a multitude of men to their financial hurt. Of late years the more intelligent class of writers, instead of calling him an “Arabian” call him a “Barb,” but there is just as much propriety in using one name as the other, and not a scintilla of authority for using either. Whatever may have been his origin, his marvelous structural combination of propelling power supplied what was wanting in the English stock of his day, and gave him success. Since then thousands of Arabians and Barbs have been tried and all of them have failed.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ENGLISH RACE HORSE (Continued).
England supplied with horses before the Christian era—Bred for different purposes—Markham on the speed of early native horses—Duke of Newcastle on Arabians—His choice of blood to propagate—Size of early English horses—Difficulties about pedigrees in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Early accumulations very trashy—The Galloways and Irish Hobbies—Discrepancies in size—The old saddle stock—The pacers wiped out—Partial revision of the English Stud Book.
Britain was fully supplied with horses when first invaded by the Romans, but as there is no history beyond that period we are only groping in the dark when we attempt to discover when or whence this supply was procured. The most reasonable theory is that the first supply came from the Phœnician merchants, when they were trading for tin in the southwestern part of Britain. If this theory be correct, the trading between the Phœnicians and the Britons could hardly have been later than the fourth century before the Christian era, and it is more probable that it was several centuries earlier. This topic, however, has been considered in a preceding chapter. Another theory is that when the tides of migration struck the Atlantic, in the higher latitudes, there was a natural deflection toward the warmer countries of the south, the people carrying their horses with them. But from the primitive condition of the arts and of maritime affairs among the Norsemen of that very early period, and from the insular position of Britain, it seems to me that to reach it with horses, the most probable source of supply was from that great nation whose “ships of Tarshish” had been trading to all lands more than a thousand years before the Christian era. But, laying all theories aside, there are some facts and dates that we know, and the particular one to which I wish here to call attention is the historical record that when the Romans first visited Britain they found an abundant supply of horses; and this was about four hundred years before Arabia received her supply from the Emperor Constantius.