PRIAM AND ZINGANEE. 153 



be guided by his advice in his TattersalFs operations 

 on the Monday. It ran as follows : 



" Sunningliill Wells, Monday morning, 8 o'clock. 



" My Lord, 1 lose no time in answering your lordship's note de- 

 siring me to remit my opinion of the horses in the Ascot Cup. 



41 Cadland and Mameluke are good horses; the latter, at times, 

 shows temper, and will require the most skilful management to make 

 him run to his best form amongst a field of horses, and the slightest 

 mistake in this respect will be fatal to him for the race. The Colonel 

 is badly shaped : his ribs and quarters are much too large and heavily 

 formed, and will cause him to tire and run a jade ; independent of 

 this defect, the course, of all others, is especially ill suited to him, 

 and will cause him to fall an easy victim. Still his party are so ex- 

 ceedingly fond of him, as to think no horse can defeat him, and they 

 have backed him for an immense sum. In the face of all this, I 

 entertain the most contemptible opinion of him, for the distance of 

 ground, and I fear nothing whatever from him. Lamplighter is not 

 sufficiently good to cope with the company he will have to meet ; and 

 neither Green-Mantle nor Varna, although good mares, can have a 

 chance with the old horses over this strong course. 



" I have the best horse in England at this moment in Zinganee ; 

 and if the race is desperately run, which I hope and anticipate it will 

 be, and my brother sends him out the last three-quarters of a mile, 

 to keep the pace severe, I shall be very much surprised and greatly 

 disappointed if I do not see him with the Cup on Thursday without 

 the slightest degree of trouble, notwithstanding the powerful field of 

 horses he has to contend against. 



" I am. your Lordship's most obedient servant, 



"WILLIAM CHIFNEY. 



"The Earl of Darlington." 



Such a Carnival, as far as carriages were con- 

 cerned, has never been seen at Ascot, either before 

 or since. " Through the wood follow me ! " was the 

 key-note of every Justice Shallow, Falstaff, and 

 " Merry Wife " for twenty miles round Windsor on 

 that great Cup day, whose next anniversary saw the 

 pulse that beat highest in the royal stand faintly 

 ebbing away. The carriages were in some places 

 nearly twenty deep by the side of the cords, and the 

 verderers declared that nearly ' ' half a mile of them" 

 never reached the course at all till the Cup was run 

 for. After three false starts, George Edwards, on 

 the 2,000-guinea Bobadilla, made the running till 



