NEWMARKET IN THE OLDEN TIME. 85 



lings were at times called upon to exhibit, over their 

 especial 2 fur. 52 yds. course on the Flat. Matching 

 was the very heart-blood of the meetings, and when 

 ten or twelve choice souls, each with the spirit of a 

 Bedford or a Glasgow, met in earnest round the 

 Club decanters, both jockeys and trainers knew that 

 there would be heavy work cut out for them before 

 dawn. Five harvest moons had waned since the 

 merry heart and splendid presence of " George 

 Guelph " had ceased to enliven these revels. The 

 Newmarket breakfast tables were no longer on the 

 qui vive for the news of some fresh practical joke 

 which had been played off by him at the Club over- 

 night. No French Prince had now to be coaxed 

 vigorously for twelve hours before he would forgive 

 the royal thrust, which sent him suddenly over-head 

 into the pond before its windows, as he bent forward 

 to examine " de beautiful fish of gold ;" and even 

 Bow-street Townsend had ceased to look grim and 

 discomfited, when the wags would persist in asking 

 him, if he had "found the door key ? " The royal 

 string, with their lads in scarlet liveries, was no longer 

 to be seen issuing out of the Palace stables, when 

 Baker or Neale was in command, and streaming across 

 the flat, or up the Bury hill, in Indian-file ; and a 

 massive but finely-formed outline, in an over-coat with 

 a fur collar, was no longer dimly descried at the end- 

 ing post by Samuel Chifney, as he rode the trials at 

 five o' clock, on a grey September morning. The bit- 

 terness with which some, who were all smiles to the 

 Prince's face, commented behind his back on the run- 

 ning of Escape, had driven him in disgust from the 

 spot, with a hasty vow that it should know him no 

 more. Still his temporary desertion did not make the 

 Heath a desert. Francis Duke of Bedford had up- 

 wards of thirty horses at the Valley, or Eight-mile 

 Bottom, which, with the grandfather of the Stephen- 

 sons as their trainer, and Samuel Chifney as jockey, 

 nobly upheld the prestige of the " buff and purple 



