NEWMARKET UNDER CHARLES II. 259 



venal wits and venal beauties would follow in 

 crowds. 



Upon such occasions the streets, we are told, 

 were made impassable by coaches and six. " In 

 the places of public resort peers flirted with 

 maids of honour, while officers of the Life Guards, 

 all plumes and gold lace, jostled professors in 

 teachers' caps and black gowns, for from the 

 neighbouring University of Cambridge there 

 always came high functionaries with loyal ad- 

 dresses, and the University would select her 

 ablest theologians to preach before the sovereign 

 and his splendid retinue." 



Whether those able theologians were valued 

 at their true worth may be gathered from a 

 further description in which we learn that during 

 the wildest days of the Restoration " the most 

 learned and eloquent divine might fail to draw 

 a fashionable audience, particularly if Buckingham 

 had announced his intention of holding forth, for 

 sometimes his Grace would enliven the dullness 

 of the Sunday morning by addressing to the 

 bevy of fine gentlemen and fine ladies a ribald 

 exhortation which he called a sermon.'* 



The court of King William, however, proved 

 more decent, and then the Academic dignitaries 

 were treated with marked respect. "Thus with 

 lords and ladies from St James's and Soho, and 

 with doctors from Trinity College and King's 

 College, were mingled the provincial aristo 



