8o The Post and the Paddock, 



these choice spirits exchanged minds on the Heath. 

 The mind of the venerable waiter, on whose head no 

 race-goer or villager could ever remember to have 

 seen a hat, and the ghosts of the chaises which rum- 

 bled that seventeen miles, year after year, past Bourne 

 Bridge, may be soothed when they see the Chester- 

 ford line rank with grass and weeds ; but this is the 

 only " pull" they have. Time, that gentle innovator, 

 has silently done his work in Newmarket, and in some 

 respects, not for the better. The outline of the Club 

 buildings is the same, but the greater part of the 

 Palace has been pulled down, sold, or converted into 

 shops, and the late Duke of Rutland was its latest 

 race-occupant. " Queen Jamie" had first built it for 

 a hunting residence, and in 1647 the Roundhead sen- 

 tinels hummed a surly hymn at its portals as they 

 kept watch and ward for a fortnight over their cap- 

 tive King. Under their grim auspices the cockpit, in 

 which James had so often delighted, quickly became 

 desolate ; but cocking from ten till dinner-time, races 

 from three to six, and then to the cockpit again, was 

 the summer order of the Merrie Monarch's Newmar- 

 ket day. His time was divided between Windsor, 

 Newmarket, and Winchester, and when nothing but a 

 few blackened walls remained of the much-loved 

 racing seat, his autumns were principally spent in 

 hunting excursions in the New Forest. These royal 

 visits to Winchester, on the site of whose ancient 

 castle he laid the foundation of a palace, which Sir 

 Christopher Wren had designed partly after the model 

 ot Versailles, did not lack his wonted retinue, who 

 broke the stillness of the grey cathedral cloisters with 

 their glee songs and their dances. The Duchess of 

 Portsmouth, his most favoured mistress, furnished out 

 of hand a house for herself; but Nell Gwynne had 

 reason to sigh for her snug Newmarket " Nunnery," 

 beneath whose roof Frank Butler died, and which was 

 said to be connected in old times with the Palace by 



