394 HISTORY OF THE 



the truth of my account) thus much may and 

 ought to be said : the anecdote, however barbarous 

 and inhuman, is strictly probable, and may be 

 matched in too great a multitude of melancholy 

 instances. The object in view was a very large 

 sum of money, and perhaps the moral dialectics of 

 that day differed not very greatly from that of a 

 later period, in which present profit is supposed to 

 constitute the essence of justice — to ourselves — 

 and that ourselves are our nearest relatives. I 

 really cannot conceive but that some such fact per- 

 petrated must have been the ground of that universal 

 tradition, whether or not the eminent person named 

 were the perpetrator. 



** Supposing the affirmative, the circumstance 

 might have occurred in the thoughtless season 

 of youth and dissipation, and the manners of Mr. 

 Frampton's latter life might have presented far 

 different and far softer aspects. 



*' Treagonwell Frampton, Esq., keeper of the run- 

 ning horses at Newmarket to William III., Queei 

 Anne, George I. and II., died in the year 1 727, aged 

 eighty-six years ; he might therefore have been a 

 proprietor of racers in the reign of Charles II.; and 

 the famous Dragon, who precedes our oldest racing 

 annals, and of v/hom we know nothing but by oral 

 tradition, may have flourished about that time. It 

 is yet possible that the origin of this story may be 

 traced in some of the old periodical publications, 



