heavily for the plate, yet were without means of paying when they lost; the gambling-booths open for Hazard; and the vile rabble in close contact with the gentry. Add to these, let us say, the presence of Beauty (not always irreproachable in character), with masculine tastes, giving encouragement to frivolity and vice: "Udsbows," cries my Country-man John, "Was ever the like before seen? By Hats and the Feathers they'd on I took 'em all for men." We may guess that The Lady Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland, and others of the Court "Misses," gathered to Newmarket on such occasions: we know with certainty about the Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles Second was a liberal Patron of the Turf : "The easiest Prince and best-bred man alive." Newmarket had become distinguished for a stud so early as 1588-9, when some splendid Spanish horses (that had been saved from wrecks of the Invincible Armada, on the coast of Galloway) were brought thither. James I. encouraged horse-racing, and visited Newmarket. The house there built by him, intended for royal visitors, having been almost entirely destroyed by the malice of the Parliamentarians, was restored by the orders of Charles II., soon after his return to England. Samuel Pepys, under the date Oct. 5, 1663, mentions that Charles II. was expected at Newmarket, and that Lord Sandwich desired to receive him at Hinchinbroke. On May 22nd, 1668, Charles is again at Newmarket, with his brother, "at a great Horse-Race, and proposed great pleasure for two or three days, but are in the same wet as Pepys himself, then in London; which is a mighty consolation to the worthy man. Again, on the 7th of March, 1668-9, he records that Charles and the Duke of York "set out for Newmarket by three in the morning, to some foot and horse-races, to be abroad ten or twelve days." Sir John Reresby tells how Charles occupied himself at Newmarket, in 1684:-" He walked in the morning till ten o'clock; then he went to the cock-pit till dinner time; about three he went to the horse-races; at six [he returned] to the cock-pit for an hour; then [he went] to the play, though the comedians were very indifferent; so to supper; next to the Duchess of Portsmouth's till bed-time, and then to his own apartment to bed."-Reresby's Memoirs, 1875 edit., p. 300. The Palace of Newmarket was not completed at the time of Charles's death, 6th Feb., 1685. He had complained of the rooms being too small, and Sir Christopher Wren was the architect employed for the improvement. Charles had somehow managed to lay aside 80,000 guineas (as the story runs), found afterwards in his private cabinet, intended for Newmarket Palace, or Winchester. 10 [Bagford Collection, I. 94.] Races at New-Market. TO THE TUNE OF To Horse, Brave Boys. Licensed according to Order. I. TO Horse brave boys, to New-Market, to horse, He cannot endure it, he cannot, he will not, Age, age hath hindr'd his speed Sir, Now, now, now see they come on, see, see, the Horse leads the way, Full three lengths before at the turn of the land, Five Hundred pound upon the Brown-Bay, But a Pox of the Devil I fear we have lost, The Dog the Blew-Bonnet, has run it, (a Murrain light on it) the wrong side the Post, Odds-Bobs was ever such fortune. II. Make hast, make hast, to New-Market away, 1 Course: misprinted "Coast." 4 8 12 16 20 24 Run, Run, and freely your Guineas now venter Sorrel runs swiftest since Dragons grown old, You'll find by and by that he cannot endure it, nor run it as lately he could: Years, Years doth hinder his speed, Sir. Now, now, now see they come on, see Sorrel still leads the way, 28 32 36 A full furlong before at the Turn of the land, 40 Five Hundred pound 'tis that gets the Day. But fie on that Jockey, I fear I have lost, With ease he had won it, had won it, if he had but run it, On this side the Post, No Man had ever such fortune. III. To Horse, we must not of Fortune complain, 44 Dragon does scour it, but Brown-Bay's before, And holds it, and holds it, and wins it, and wins it: He runs it, so merrily o'er, 56 I'll hold you now five hundred pound more. But now we're undone, and our Guineas are lost, 60 (a Vengeance light on it) The Rogue the Blew-Bonnet, has ran it, the wrong side the post, I never had such ill fortune. FINIS. Printed for C. Bates, at the Sun and Bible in Pye-Corner. [About 1685. White-letter.] 64 BAGFORD. G THROUGHOU Stormy Judgments. HROUGHOUT our earlier English history we are met by innumerable records of the superstitious fears entertained by persons who accepted every unusual sight or sound as a dire Portent. Archbishop Laud carefully noted, in his Diary, such an occurrence as his nose bleeding; and his enemies in the Puritan faction were, in their own way, still more credulous, often moved with questionings of the spirit by atmospheric disturbances or appearances in the sky, supposing each event to be either a sign from the Lord or a delusion of the Evil One. Monstrous births had formed the subject of catch-penny ballads and prose broadsides from the very beginning of such fly-sheets coming into use. Most of these were spiced with warnings about "Pride's Fall" (see Roxburghe Coll., III. 64), reproving luxury and pomp, as though the unhappy mother of a misformed child must needs have sinned outrageously, before she could have been so grievously afflicted for a punishment. Narrators forgot the answer given to those who asked "Whether did this man sin, or his parents, that he should be born blind?" or, again, the correction of the error of such who mistakenly believed that the men on whom the Tower of Siloam fell were worse sinners than those who had escaped. Among the rare Black-letter ballads of the sixteenth century, formerly in George Daniel's Collection at Canonbury, and now the property of Henry Huth, Esq., are a dozen on Monstrous Births. Five of these bear the date 1562, and others of 1564, 1568, and 1569. (See A Collection of Seventy-nine Black-Letter Ballads and Broadsides, printed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, between 1559 and 1597: London, 1870; with Introduction and Notes, for which, we believe, we owe thanks to J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps.) We have read a dismal account of a shower of blood and other horrible missiles, which came down upon Fairford, in Somersetshire (noted county for such events), about the end of the Commonwealth terrors greatly magnified by the dejected Puritans, who believed the world was doomed if it lost them. Volumes could be filled with transcriptions of similar " Judgments." But all of us have met nervous people who looked grave at an eclipse, penitential in November when shooting-stars were rife, and who considered each comet with its fiery tail unfolded to be the precursor of final doom. Surely there must be some special delight for timid mortals, in these spasms of terror; like the drinking of absinthe and smoking of rank tobacco, from all which healthy taste revolts. As a nation we have not entirely gained sanity, and scientific calmness of investigation; but we have progressed a little since the days when Somersetshire boy Sabbath-breakers necessarily vomited pins, or when Alice taunting Beatrice in the marketplace calls her a "Witch" as the worst indignity possible (pp. 64, 70). On the whole, we scarcely think there is more damage done to nations or to individuals by their believing too much, than by their believing too little. To be occasionally uneasy because of Stormy Judgments may be silly; but we cannot feel convinced of the superior wisdom of those who act and talk as if they thought there were no Providence at all, but that events befall by blind chance, or are regulated austerely by some impersonal power dignified by the name of Eternal Law. [Bagford Collection, I. 95.] The Stormy Judgments; Or, The Tempestuous Wind. With an Account of the great Damage done by the High Winds, both by Sea and Land; on Friday Right and Saturday Morning, bring November the 26th, 1703. TUNE OF, Our Saviours Birth. |