GEORGE IV. 119 



Manchester, two or three weeks before the purchase, 

 and the King was very desirous to match her against 

 this crack as well. This subject, of course, was dis- 

 cussed, and the King declared that he would write 

 proposals forthwith to Mr. No well, for a 1,000 guineas 

 a- side match, at Ascot, the next year. " Sam, you 

 shall ride her," he added, as that jockey got off 

 Memnon, and joined his brother at the phaeton side. 

 " Bun them at Newmarket, your Majesty \" chimed 

 in the ever- wakeful Jack ; but " No, no ! William, 

 they treated your poor father and me very badly ; 

 I wont run there" was all the response he received 

 to his officious suggestion. Jack having thus thrust 

 himself into the conversation, was made to furnish a 

 little sport in his turn, and told to canter his mare. 

 Away they went the mare gaily cocking her tail, 

 and Jack leaning forward in his stirrups, to the in- 

 tense amusement of the four; and when he was fairly 

 out of ear-shot, the King began with " There's a 

 nice mare look at Jack, too, how he sticks himself 

 out ; he thinks he can ride quite as well as you, Sam." 

 Just as he was going, he added, " You must both look 

 in at the Castle, on Friday, and III show you a hunter 

 the very image of a horse we had at Albury Park, 

 when you were both little fellows with your uncle 

 there ;" and so saying, he shook them by the hand, 

 and laughingly bade Sam to " have a little mercy on 

 my poor Mortgage to-morrow." This was the last 

 private interview the brothers ever had with the King, 

 and it formed an appropriate pleasant close to their 

 then five-and-thirty years' recollections of him, which 

 dated from the day they sat at Newmarket, one on 

 each knee, and then ran to show their mother the 

 guineas he had given them. 



Ascot, in those days, was the delight of the King's 

 heart, and for three or four years before his death, 

 he had two meetings annually, at a week's interval. 

 In 1825, he came for the first time in the royal pro- 

 cession up the New Mile, Lord Maryborough leading 



