348 TRAINERS AND JOCKEYS. 



' Hudibras,' has in verse, like Shakespeare in prose, 

 compared it to a bubble : 



' Honour is like that glassy bubble 

 That finds philosophers such trouble ; 

 Whose least part crack'd, the whole does fly, 

 And wits are crack'd to find out Avhy.' 



So much for honour. As to money and learning, a 

 superficial knowledge of the immortal bard will 

 teach us in what estimation they were held in the 

 days in which he wrote. Of the one he said : 

 ' Therefore, though gaudy gold, hard food for Midas, 

 I will none of thee ;' and of the other : ' I once did 

 count it, as our statist did, a baseness to write fair.' 



Again, in the days before Shakespeare lived, and 

 in his own time, vile and useless men were most 

 sought after. Prince Henry, in his admiration of 

 FalstafF, said of him when alive : ' How now, my 

 sweet creature of bombast?' — and in his soliloquy, 

 when deeply lamenting his death : ' What, old ac- 

 quaintance, could not all this flesh keep in a little 

 life ? Poor Jack, farewell ! I could have better 

 spared a better man !' 



So much for men, morals, and money, as they were 

 viewed in old days. I may now apply myself to the 

 strict consideration of the subject I have in view — the 

 progress made by trainers and jockeys in our days, 

 and the happy contrast which their present position 

 affords when compared with the, in this sense, be- 

 nighted condition of those of the older school. The 



