SECOND PERIOD : GEORGE III. 83 



advertisement from provincial meetings, not by 

 the recently-established Jockey Club from New- 

 market Heath), Mr. Wildman (a meat salesman 

 of sporting proclivities and of great astuteness), 

 Mr., or Captain, O'Kelly (an Irish adventurer, 

 whose vocation was gambling of every descrip- 

 tion, and whose delight was a * cross and jostle '), 

 Mr., or Captain, England (commonly called Dick 

 England, another Irishman, a bully, a ruffian, and 

 a gamester, a frequenter of the notorious Jack 

 Munday's coffee-house. Round Court, in the 

 Strand, with the aforesaid O'Kelly, and Jack 

 Tetherington, Bob Weir, Tom Hull, the Clarkes, 

 and, in fact, ' the most noted black-legs on the 

 town '), and other birds of the like feather. In- 

 somuch that Mr. Denis O'Kelly, by becoming the 

 owner of Eclipse, overshadowed, as a runner and 

 breeder of race-horses, all the nobility and gentry 

 addicted to the turf, and set an example, which 

 was speedily and frequently followed, of supre- 

 macy, so far as horse-racing and horse-breeding 

 are concerned, attained by a man of a very different 

 class from his predecessors in that position. Mr. 

 John Pratt, of Askrigg, had been a special case, 

 and a member of the Jockey Club to boot; and 



