1 82 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



a man whose rise to power was greeted with the exclamation that begins this 

 paragraph. 



Of the many clubs which Steele and Addison so charmingly satirise, the Kitcat 

 Club is perhaps the one that is associated to-day with the most amusing memories, 

 for the house of its founder, Tonson the bookseller, is now the centre of a sporting 

 confraternity where the gaiety of Queen Anne's best society is mingled with the 

 best of modern progress. Lord Halifax, Lord \Yharton, Lord Lansdowne, and 

 Mr. Maynwaring were among its members, and one of the many famous " toasts" 

 to whom they drank was " the little Whig," that Lady Sunderland, who was a true 

 daughter of Sarah Jennings and the conqueror of Blenheim, and who was often to 

 be seen at Newmarket. Another was that lovely Prussian, Mademoiselle de Span- 

 heim, who was a reigning beauty before her marriage in i/io. There was once a 

 visitor to Newmarket whose description of Frampton I have already quoted ; he 

 concludes it with the strange mistake : " Pray take it with .you as you go, that you 

 see no ladies at Newmarket except a few of the neighbouring gentlemen's families, 

 who come in their carriages to see a race and then go home again." Seldom has 

 the truth been better exemplified of the old saying that a man only sees what he 

 deserves to see. This chronicler, whose inaccuracy I had occasion to point out when 

 I first quoted him, may not have been dazzled with the Castlemaines and Stuarts of 

 the Restoration ; but he is not going to make us believe that the old road through 

 the King's Gate towards Theobalds was utterly disused by ladies at a date when 

 the Queen herself was giving Gold Cups and racing her own horses, while Lady 

 Savile, Lady Gainsborough, Mrs. Layton, and Mrs. Hetty Savile to name no more 

 were eagerly following the Royal example. I can imagine that Beatrix must have 

 sometimes watched a good finish on the Rowley Mile, while Esmond stood behind 

 her and glowered at the dandies who crowded round the Grand Stand. The ladies 

 wore that bewitching headdress of high plaited lace above their hair which took the 

 place of the Stuart ringlets, and when they rode a-horseback in the country they 

 wore the masks that were the early substitutes for modern veils ; and the wonderful 

 names of some of the Indian stuffs that were just coming into fashion have been 

 preserved in ancient bills of haberdashers long since deceased : Pallampores, 

 Byrampants, Callowaypoose, Sovaguzzees, tissues which looked we may be sure 

 far less barbarous than their outlandish names, and were no doubt much set off 

 by the Apes from East India, the Pages from Genoa, and the Lapdogs from Vigo 

 which were all the fashion then among smart English ladies. Nor were the gentle- 



