142 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



later than 1759 can be found in the records (such as 

 are at hand to consult), and Holcroft says that it took 

 place ' about a year and a half ' after he took service 

 with * Captain ' Vernon at Newmarket, whereas Mr. 

 Christie Whyte (whose misprints, however, are as the 

 sand upon the sea-shore for multitude) says that 

 Holcroft did not enter the service until after 1760. 

 However, no doubt Holcroft did see a case of * savag- 

 ing,' between those very two horses, perhaps ; but the 

 ' holding back,' as Forester certainly lost (and not 

 apparently * on a foul '), is rather a strain on credulity, 

 and one cannot help thinking that Holcroft, when he 

 wrote his ' Memoirs ' (edited by W. Hazlitt), put in a 

 few * dramatic touches ' under the influence of a long 

 course of play-writing. Perhaps it is not to be taken 

 more literally than the story about Mr. Vernon him- 

 self and the ' automatic extinguisher,' which he is 

 said to have had erected by way of sounding-board to 

 the pulpit of his parish church at Newmarket, and 

 which was warranted to come down over the parson's 

 head if he preached for more than a certain tolerable 

 number of minutes. 



Mr. Vernon belonged politically to what was known 

 as * the Bloomsbury gang,' which accounts for his 

 sitting in Parliament (on the nomination of the Duke 

 of Bedford) as M.P. for Tavistock and for Bedford, as 

 well as for Okehampton, and for his obtaining the 

 office of Clerk of the Board of Green Cloth, as well as 

 for the bestowal of his name upon Vernon Place, 



