86 The Book of the Horse. 



perhaps depends ? There was he as if he had no thoughts but for the turf, full of the horses 

 of interest in the lottery, eager, blunt, noisy, good-humoured, 



'Has meditans nugas et in illis.' 



At night equally devoted to play, as if his fortune depended on it. Thus can a man relax 

 whose existence is devoted to great objects and serious tlwughts ! 



" ^^33- — I li'id considerable hopes of winning the Derby, but was beaten easily, my horse 

 not being good. An odd circumstance occurred to me before the race : Payne (George) told 

 me in strict confidence that a man, who could not appear on account of his debts, and who 

 had been much connected with turf robberies, came to him and entreated him to take the odds 

 for him to ;^i,000 about a horse for the Derby, and deposited a bank-note in his hand for the 

 purpose. He told him half the horses 7vere made safe, and that it was arranged this one 

 was to win. After much delay, and having got his promise to lay out the money, he told him 

 it was my horse. He did back the horse for the man for £']CiO, but the same person told him 

 if my horse could not win Datigcrons would ; and he backed the latter likewise for i^ioo, by 

 which his friend was saved, and won ;^8oo. He did not tell me his name, nor anything more, 

 except that his object was, if he had won, to pay his creditors, and he had authorised Pa)'ne 

 to retain the money, if he had won it, for that purpose. 



''June iit/i, 1833. — At a place called Buckhurst, for Ascot races. Racing all the morning, 

 then eating-, drinking, and play at night. I may say, with more truth than anybody, ' Video 

 ineliora proboqiie, deteriora seqnor! He who wastes his early years in horse-racing, and all sorts 

 of idleness, figuring away among the foolish, must be content to play an inferior part among 

 the learned and wise. 



" When I read such books as the ' Life of Mackintosh,' and see what other men have been, 

 how they have read and thought, a sort of despair comes over me, a deep, bitter sensation of 

 regret ' for time mis-spent, and talents misapplied,' not the less bitter from being coupled with a 

 hopelessness of remedial industry, and of doing better things. 



" Dined yesterday with Stanley, who gave me a commission to bet a hundred for him on 

 Bentley, against Bubastes, for the Derby, and talked of racing with as much zest as if he were 

 on the turf. Who, to see him and hear him thu-, would take him for the greatest orator 

 and statesman of the day ! 



"All last week at Epsom, and now, thank God, these races are over! I have had all 

 the trouble and excitement and worry, and have neither won nor lost ; nothing but the hope 

 of gain would induce me to go througii this demoralising drudgery, which I am conscious 

 reduces me to the level of all that is most disreputable and despicable. My thoughts are 

 eternally absorbed by it. Jockeys, trainers, and blacklegs are my companions, but it is 

 like dram-drinking, having once entered upon it, I cannot leave it off, though I am disgusted 

 with tile occupation. Let no man who has no need, who is not in danger of losing all he 

 has, and is not obliged to grasp at every chance, make a book on the Derby. While the 

 fever it e.xcites is raging and the odds are varying I can neither read, nor write, nor occupy 

 myself with anything else. 



" At the gaming-table all men are equal ; no superiority of birth, acciiniplishnients, or ability 

 avail here — great noblemen, merchants, orators, jockeys, statesmen, and idlers, are thrown 

 together in levelling degrading confusion. The only pre-eminence is that of success ; the 

 only superiority that of temper. 



" I'lay is a detestable occupation, it absorbs all our thoughts, destroys the better feelings, 



