sporting and Rural Records of the Chevelev Estate. Ill 



Tregonwell 

 Frampton. 



■'The Horrible 

 Narrative." 



considerable fortune by play, particularly by racing. I had won him many S.\xTO>f Hall 



large sums ; but by being at length excepted out of every match, as having 



no equal, he regarded even my excellence with malignity when it was no 



longer subservient to his interest. Yet I still lived in ease and plenty; and 



as he was able to sell even my pleasures, though my labour was become 



useless, I had a seraglio in which there was a perpetual succession of new 



beauties. At last, however, another competitor appeared : I enjoyed a new 



triumph by anticipation ; I rushed into the field, panting for the conquest, 



and the first heat I put my master in possession of the stakes, which 



amounted to ten thousand pounds. The proprietor of the mare that I had 



distanced, notwithstanding this disgrace, declared with great zeal, that she 



should run the next day against any gelding in the world for double the 



sum : my master immediately accepted the challenge, and told him that he 



would the next day produce a gelding that should beat her : but what was 



my astonishment and indignation, when I discovered that he most cruelly 



and fraudulently intended to qualify me for this match upon the spot ; and 



to sacrifice my life at the very moment in which every nerve should be 



strained in his service. 



"As I knew it would be in vain to resist, I suffered myself to be bound : 

 the operation was performed, and I was instantly mounted and spurred on 

 to the goal. Injured as I was, the love of glory was still superior to the 

 desire of revenge : I determined to die as I lived, without an equal ; and 

 having again won the race, I sunk down at the post in an agony, which 

 soon after put an end to my life." 



This remarkable exhortation of " the Steed " having been thus 

 created, in what Dr. Hawksworth terms " the fervour of his 

 imagination" (an M.D. might diagnose it a case of inebriation), 

 he proceeds to point a moral by adding : " When I heard this 

 horrible narrative, which indeed I remembered to be true, I 

 turned about in honest confusion, and blushed that I was a man." 

 The blackbird then enters the elysium and engages Hawkesworth 

 with song and elegy ; and there we leave them. 



Now, there is nothing in the incident, as transcribed from the 

 original,* to identify or associate Mr. Frampton and his horse 

 Dragon with it. It is nothing more or less than a bit of 



* The extract from The Adventurer is taken from vol. ii.. pp. 13-14 ; London, 

 1770. It has been compared and verified with the editions of 1756, 1760, 1778. 

 1797, and 1823. 



