THE RACE-HORSE. 555 



urchin's eyes even when he approaches^the brushing gallop ; 

 how much more soundly is he likely to slumber upon the truss 

 of straw in the warm stall ! His dreams, however, may be 

 interrupted by the ready broom, and more effective switch. 

 " I remember to have been so punished once," says our 

 author, describing his falling asleep in the horse's stall, 

 ** when the blow, I concluded, was given by Tom Watson, 

 as I thought no other boy in the stable could have made so 

 large a wale : it reached from the knee to the instep, and was 

 of a finger's breadth." Here the chastisement may have 

 been wholesome ; but to the forlorn boy, the more cruel 

 dismissal may bring destitution, sorrow, and crime. Mr 

 Holcroft describes his own mental sufferings in a case 

 of this kind, the penalty of an unlucky tumble from a 

 dark-gray filly, by which he nearly broke his neck. But 

 for what further relates to our author's personal adven- 

 tures, reference must be made to his own amusing memoirs, 

 where we find detailed his first feelings of joy on partaking 

 of a breakfast of cold meat, Gloucester cheese, and white 

 bread ; his exultation at finding himself, in place of driving a 

 shoemaker's donkey through the dirt, mounted on an animal 

 outstripping the wind ; his fall from the dark-gray filly, and 

 its results ; and the final ruin of all his equestrian hopes, by 

 his being found " idling away his time in reading ;" by his 

 scratching ciphers on the paling of the stable-yard with a 

 nail ; becoming actually able to spell a word of six syllables, 

 to the surprise of his drunken schoolmaster ; by his being 

 found studying psalmody under the guidance of a journeyman 

 leather-breeches maker ; and finally, by his throwing away 

 all his earnings, by betting, like his betters, on the stirring 

 events of the heath. While these things may make us smile, 

 they may furnish food for graver thoughts. Can nothing be 

 done to benefit the condition of these youthful instruments of 

 so many pleasures \ Of all the vast sums which are squan- 

 dered on licentious sports, can no mite be saved to gain some 

 little food of the mind for these severely- tasked boys, even to 



