_How happy were those Sons of Men, who in times past were reputed
Persons indued with that noble Gift_, aut facere scribenda, aut
scribere legenda, _that is, either to do such things as deserved
to be writ, or to write that which was worth the reading: Now that
this ensuing Treatise is worth the reading, and practising too,
notwithstanding the little Esteem and Value, that the present Age
affords it, I shall endeavour to prove both from the great Antiquity,
and Usefulness of this noble Sport of Cocking: A thing esteem’d so
Sacred, and held in such high Veneration amongst the Antients, that,
as_ Diodorus Siculus _testifies, the Fighting-Cock was reckon’d one of
the principal Gods worshiped by the_ Syrians.
[Sidenote: Diodor. Sicul. _lib._ 1. 18. R. Da. non diffentit.]
[Sidenote: Athenæ. Diosco. _lib._ 4.]
_And_ Rabby David, _a learned Hebrew Doctor, interpreting the_ 2 _of_
Kings ch. 17. v. 30, 31. _where_ Nergal _is spoken, of which is (as
he says) a Cock of the Field, a Champion Cock, a Cock for War, or a
Fighting Cock, and by them there Worshiped as a God in_ Samaria. _Which
at once denotes the high Esteem and Value, with the great Antiquity
also, of these Warlike Birds. And_ Athenæus _and_ Dioscorides, _both of
them acknowledge the Fighting-Cock to be one of the Deities which the
antient_ Greeks _did greatly Adore. And that in their time there was an
Altar found in a Vault far under Ground, whereon had been engraven’d a
Cock, and inscribed thus_