lo The Post and the Paddock, 



and the short, sharp bark of the fox still broke on the 

 ear of the waggoner, as he drove his lumbering wain 

 at midnight past Kensington Gardens, and stopped for 

 a draught at the Half-way House bowl. 



Two or three were still living at Newmarket, who 

 could remember how the Court hurried back to 

 London at the news of the Rye House Plot ; and how 

 Nell Gwynne held her infant out of the window, as 

 her royal lover passed down the Palace Gardens to his 

 stables, and threatened to drop him if he was not 

 made a duke on the spot. Although he had, both 

 by word and gesture, roasted little Sir Christopher 

 Wren for thinking that the apartments at his Hunting 

 Palace at Newmarket were quite high enough, there 

 were none at Whitehall that he loved better. One 

 day His Majesty might be " seen among the elms of 

 St. James's Park, chatting with Dryden about poetry," 

 and on the next, " his arm was on Tom Durfey's 

 shoulder, and he would be taking a second to his 

 ' Phyllida, PhyUida,' or ' To horse, my brave boys of 

 Newmarket ! to horse !' " The races had not dege- 

 nerated since the Merrie Monarch and his minstrel 

 crew crossed that threshold for the last time. A 

 writer of Queen Anne's reign speaks of " the great 

 concourse of nobility and gentry on the Heath, all 

 biting one another as much as possible ;" and draws 

 no very flattering contrast between them and the 

 horse-coursers in Smithfield. 



When Heber commenced his labours, the sport at 

 Newmarket principally consisted of 50/. subscription 

 plates, and matches over the beacon. The Rev. Mr. 

 Goodricke and J^ohn Hutchinson, the Malton trainer, 

 had not as yet made the match which brought two- 

 year-old racing into vogue. Ancaster, Gower, and 

 Patmore, were names of renown in its lists ; and 

 ** Old Q.," who had then hardly seen seven-and- 

 twenty summers, and was able to go to scale at ten 

 stone with his racing saddle, had already established 



