Mr, Drttry Wake. 297 



intensify rather than diminish ) and it was not long 

 before the whole University rang with the echoes of an 

 equestrian feat to which there had hitherto been no 

 parallel in its sporting annals. A member of Exeter 

 College, having earned for himself a great deal of credit 

 by riding to London and back in eight hours, it seemed 

 to Mr. Wake as if '^ the cry '''' made over the performance 

 was out of all proportion to " the wool " of which it was 

 composed. The matter having come under discussion 

 one evening at a wine-party, he offered to take two 

 hundred pounds to fifty that he would ride the same 

 distance in two hours less time. The bet being im- 

 mediately snapped up, Tollitt — provider of horses — was 

 invited to supply the necessary amount of hacks, for 

 which he was to receive fifty pounds if the wager was 

 won, nothing if it was lost. Without any sort of training, 

 on a fine spring morning, the '^ hardy horseman ^' found 

 himself in full career on his way to the Marble Arch, 

 from which point the return journey was to commence. 

 All things having gone favourably, and the various hacks, 

 each and all, having done their work satisfactorily, Mr. 

 Wake found himself back in Oxford with an hour to 

 spare, the distance having been accomplished in a little 

 over five hours, without any ill effect to horses or rider. 

 As has been elsewhere recorded, Mr. Osbaldeston, in his 

 famous ride at Newmarket, completed two hundred miles 

 in eight hours and thirty nine minutes ; but inasmuch as this 

 took place on the springy, elastic turf of the Heath, with 

 nearly thirty horses of the highest class, all ready to the 

 moment, and Mr. Wake had eleven Oxford hacks — some 

 not at hand when required, a hard turnpike road to gallop 

 on, with a hill four miles in length to descend and to 



