FOURTH PERIOD : VICTORIA 157 



trainers,' and of Neale and of Prince and Company, 

 would never come back to it. Of course it was 

 not to be expected that her Majesty in person 

 would patronize Newmarket after the fashion of 

 her late uncles, who had cost the country so much 

 money by their horse-racing and gambling ; nor 

 could the wildest imagination conceive such a 

 spectacle as Prince Albert riding, In the style of 

 George P., one of the horses of a post-chaise 

 bound for the Heath, with Lord Melbourne, in 

 the style of the Right Hon. C. J. Fox, riding 

 another behind him ; or having such a henchman 

 as Jack Ratford at his elbow, or ' taking the odds ' 

 to a ' monkey ' from a blatant ' leviathan.' 



Nevertheless her Majesty did, as she always 

 has done, as much as loyalty towards her people, 

 even as regards their pastimes, required ; for she 

 and the Prince Consort saw Little Wonder win 

 the Derby of 1840, and presented Macdonald, the 

 rider of that winner (a very much maligned animal, 

 if he were only three years old), with ' an elegant 

 riding-whip' as a memento. Her Majesty, more- 

 over, most loyally maintained the prestige of 

 Royal Ascot, with the imposing spectacle of the 

 state procession, until the advent of that black 

 cloud which darkened her life for ever. Strange 



