14 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK 



neighbourhood. He may or may not have ridden 

 " Peter the Cruel/' but it is written of him in his 

 friend's Life, how he mounted his " little jackass" in 

 the garden at Foston-le-Clay ; and, furthermore, 

 when he went in for Malton, some one-and-twenty 

 years after this sermon, he is careful to note how he 

 " was helped up about eleven o'clock on to the dorsal 

 ridge of a tall prancing steed, decorated with orange 

 ribbons, and held by attendants in the borough 

 liveries." We know not how he behaved on such 

 occasions, but we never walk down Rotten Row 

 during the season without feeling it a mercy that 

 the master-spirits of our land, who will persist in 

 riding, are still spared to us year after year ; and 

 deciding that as a body the bishops ride a great deal 

 better than the great laymen, and sit much firmer 

 and shorter in the stirrup. 



Epsom had already conferred that prestige on Sir 

 Peter Teazle and John Bull which waxed stronger 

 and stronger in their stud days. Sir Charles Bun- 

 bury confirmed the popular belief that he was the 

 best judge of a race-horse out, by winning both Derby 

 and Oaks with Eleanor. The Fitzwilliam " green'* 

 achieved its second St. Leger with Orvile ; and even 

 Sancho's and Staveley's success could not prevent 

 the decay of the Hellish fortunes, nor postpone the 

 farewell carnival which he gave to royalty in what 

 had been his own, but was then merely his borrowed, 

 house at Blythe. The matches of Sancho and Pavi- 

 lion were the talk of clubs, coffee-rooms, and ale- 

 houses for weeks, and were perhaps still more heavily 

 betted on than that between Flying Dutchman and 

 Voltigeur : while the luck of the Duke of Grafton 

 with the Waxy, of Lord Jersey with the Phantom, 

 of Lord Egremont with the Whalebone, of Lord 

 Exeter with the Sultan, and of Mr. Watt with the 

 Blacklock and Dick Andrews blood, are still proudly 

 dwelt on by breeders. The Squire of Riddlesworth 



