GEORGE IV. 113 



Bellingham Graham, and Colonels Mellisli and Leigh, 

 as their esquires. Nothing but a dark black-legged 

 bay was in those days harnessed to the royal car- 

 riages, and they were all chosen with the most scru- 

 pulous care by Sir John Lade, whose four bays and 

 harlequin postillion liveries formed a turn-out very 

 little inferior to those over which he held sway at the 

 Pavilion stables. Sir John came of age in 1780, and 

 his riches and extravagance in that year were so no- 

 torious that even Dr. Johnson wrote a poem on him, 

 which he repeated four years afterwards with unwon- 

 ted spirit to his attendants, as he lay on his own 

 majestic death-bed. Croker's edition, vol. viii., p. 

 414, gives the seven stanzas at full length ; and it is 

 not a little quaint to find the great philosopher 

 ironically exhorting the great whip of that day to 



" Call the Betseys, Kates, and Jennies, 

 All the names which banish care ; 

 Lavish of your grandsire's guineas, 



Show the spirit of an heir ! 

 " Loosen'd from the minor's tether, 



Free to mortgage or to sell, 

 Wild as wind and light as feather, 



Bid the sons of thrift farewell." &c., &c. 



The best pen-and-ink sketch of Brighton on a race 

 morning when the Prince was in his meridian, and it 

 was crowded with " tandems, beautiful women, and 

 light hussars," is thus given in Raikes's Diary : 



" In those days, the Prince made Brighton and Lewes Races the 

 gayest scene of the year in England. The Pavilion was full of guests, 

 and the Steyne was crowded with all the rank and fashion from Lon- 

 don. The ' legs' and bettors, who had arrived in shoals, used all to 

 assemble on the Steyne, at an early hour, to commence their opera- 

 tions on the first day, and the buzz was tremendous, till Lord Foley 

 and Hellish, the two great confederates of that day, would approach 

 the ring, and then a sudden silence ensued, to await the opening of 

 their books. They would come on perhaps smiling, but mysteriously, 

 without making any demonstration. At last Mr. Jerry Cloves would 

 say, ' Come, Mr. Mellish, will you light the candle and set us a-going?' 

 Then, if the Master of Buckle would say, 'I'll take three to one about 

 Sir Solomon,' the whole pack opened, and the air resounded with 

 every shade of odds and betting. About half an hour before the de- 



I 



