A CONSOLATION. 367 



particularly that part of it forming the racing com- 

 munity, if by any accident one of those great men 

 were incapacitated from following his professional 

 vocation ; and how the dire event would be bewailed 

 by a sorrowing multitude of friends and admirers, 

 till reading, by chance, a passage from ' The 

 Rambler, 1 which revived my drooping spirits. This, 

 without comment, I literally transcribe for the benefit 

 of owners, trainers, and jockeys themselves : 



' The world, says Locke, has people of all 

 sorts. As in the general hurry produced by the 

 superfluities of some and necessities of others, no man 

 need to stand still for the want of employment ; so 

 in the innumerable gradations of ability and endless- 

 varieties of study and inclination, no employment can 

 be vacant from want of a man qualified to dis- 

 charge it.' 



Comforting and most acceptable words! Some- 

 thing very much akin to what I have elsewhere heard 

 to the effect that there is ' as good fish in the sea as 

 ever came out of it.' Let us hope, for the benefit 

 of the present and succeeding generations, it may 

 be so ! 



The olden time, Pope tells us in his ' Dunciad/ 

 was dull. In Hamlet's day, according to the grave- 

 digger, the people of England w T ere mad as Hamlet 

 himself. It was an age, all things considered, of 

 little learnino- and debasing luxurv. From this con- 

 dition we are, I hope, reformed altogether. The 



