BRITISH TURF. 399 



cheats, how honest soever their master was, for he 

 scarcely ever produced a horse, but he looked Hke 

 what he was not, and was what nobody could ex- 

 pect him to be. 



** If he was as light as the wind, and could fly 

 like a meteor, he was sure to look as clumsy and 

 as dirty, and as much like a cart horse, as all the 

 cunning of his master and the grooms could make 

 him ; and just in this manner, he hit some of the 

 greatest gamesters in the field. 



** I was so sick of the jockeying part, that I left 

 the crowd about the posts, and pleased myself with 

 observing the horses, how the creatures yielded to 

 all the arts and management of their masters ; how 

 they took their airings in sport, and played with 

 the daily heats, which they ran over the course 

 before the grand day, but how as knowing the 

 difference equally with their riders, they would 

 there exert their utmost strength, as much as at 

 the time of the race itself, and that to such an 

 extremity, that one or two of them died in the 

 stable, when they came to be rubbed after the first 

 heat. 



*^ Here I fancied myself in the Circus Maximus 

 at Rome, seeing the ancient games, and under this 

 deception was more pleased than I possibly could 

 have been among the crowds of gentlemen at the 

 weighing and starting posts, or at their meetings at 

 the coffee houses and gaming tables, after the races 

 were over. Pray take it with you, as you go, that 



