10 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



morning ; and then paid pennies to the old women 

 as they came out of church, to tell them where the 

 text was, that they might have wherewithal to answer 

 their church- going masters at dinner ; and the short, 

 sharp bark of the fox still broke on the ear of the 

 waggoner, as he drove his lumbering wain at mid- 

 night past Kensington Gardens, and stopped for a 

 draught at the Half- way House bowl. 



Two or three were still living at Newmarket, who 

 could remember how the Court hurried back to Lon- 

 don at the news of the Rye House Plot ; and how 

 Nell Gwynne held her infant out of the window, as 

 her royal lover passed down the Palace Gardens to 

 his stables, and threatened to drop him if he was not 

 made a duke on the spot. Although he had, both 

 by word and gesture, roasted little Sir Christopher 

 Wren for thinking that the apartments at his Hunt- 

 ing Palace at Newmarket were quite high enough, 

 there were none at Whitehall that he loved better. 

 One day His Majesty might be " seen among the 

 elms of St. James's Park, chatting with Dryden 

 about poetry," and on the next, " his arm was on 

 Tom Durfey's shoulder, and he would be taking a 

 second to his ' Phyllida Phyllida/ or ' To horse, my 

 brave boys of Newmarket ! to horse ! ' }> The races 

 had not degenerated since the Merrie Monarch and 

 his minstrel crew crossed that threshold for the last 

 time. A writer of Queen Anne's reign speaks of 

 " the great concourse of nobility and gentry on the 

 Heath, all biting one another as much as possible" ; 

 and draws no very flattering contrast between them 

 and the horse-coursers in Smithfield. 



When Heber commenced his labours, the sport at 

 Newmarket principally consisted of .50 subscription 

 plates, and matches over the beacon. The Rev. 

 Mr. Goodricke and John Hutchinson, the Malton 

 trainer, had not as yet made the match which 

 brought two-year-old racing into vogue. Ancaster, 



