Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub
[graphic][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][subsumed]

COFFEE-HOUSE GATES, NEWMARKET.

HIS entrance to the Rooms

THIS

of the Jockey Club was built in the year 1772 by Johnson, on the property of Mr. Errat; but has been recently purchased by the Members of this ancient Institution, the Jockey Club, who are now rebuilding it in a style of magnificence worthy of their numbers and wealth, which we shall more particularize hereafter.

We are indebted to Mr. Rogers, the eminent bookseller and printer of Newmarket-an artist by art and nature, though not by profession-for the pretty little drawing from which this print was taken, and thus rescuing from oblivion a place the most appalling and the most delightful of any spot in Europe (with perhaps the exception of one). This is the place for settling accounts after each day's race; the place

where a man is sometimes made so rich that he thinks he shall never want money again, or so poor that a nation's revenue would scarcely save him from poverty.

66

There is a story told of a Gentleman, when this place was building, of his riding up to it, saying to a workman on the scaffold, 'Here, fellow, come and hold my horse!" "Yes Sir!" hastening down almost as quick as the sound of his voice, and cautiously approaching the steed, with something like " Wo, oh! poor fellow, that's all!" being quite ready at the time to spring back. "Why, what are you afraid of?" said the Gentleman; "the horse is as quiet as a lamb."

66

[ocr errors]

"Is he, Sir," retorted the man ;

can one man hold him, Sir?". "Yes, to be sure, you booby!"— "Why, then just hold him yourself!"This is not a new story.

GILBERT FORESTER'S TOUR IN THE WEST.

"The leaf is red, the leaf is sear,
The sunbeams early die;

The swallow leaves her dwelling here
To seek a warmer sky :

Then mount and away for the forest glen,

I hear its echoes ring;

When Winter falls on other men

It is the Hunter's Spring.-Sporting Magazine.

The West Countree Taunton A Varmint's Studio-Somerset Yeomanry-Old Foxbury Hospitalities of Crowcoombe Court the Mansion-Philanthropy of Nell Gwynne-Eccentricities of Bampfylde Moore Carew--Somerset Subscription Hunt Captain Luttrell and Will the Huntsman-Mr. Warrington Carew - The Kennel The Stable Fine Specimens of Ornithology-Dunster Castle and Hunting Establishment--Mr. Webb's Harriers-Reliques of Somervile, &c. interspersed with Anecdotes.

SIR,

I Think I once pledged myself to ascertain some season in propria persona what your brave subjects in the West Countree

were about. That time has arrived. I am here in the good County of Zummerzet, where my campaign begins, and where

VOL. IV. SECOND SERIES.-No. 20.

T

I must say I have already experienced all that hospitality so peculiarly the characteristic of the natives of the West. I will, therefore, redeem my gage, by at once commencing the pleasing task of informing you how and with whom my time is spent, what smart runs have been had, what are on the tapis, what kennels are worth seeing, and indeed every little scrap of news I may think interesting to that respected and respectable fraternity (which, thank God! is a pretty extensive one) who sport the scarlet. A-propos des bottes. Were I, like the tobacconist, about to choose my coat of arms, the motto should be fully as appropriate as his quid rides: it should be a fox's brush, surmounted with the words "I hunt." That is what I call multum in parvo. But to my tale.

I left that city of steam and reform (London) on the 18th or 19th of October, I won't be sure which day; the circumstance, all important as it is, has treacher ously escaped my memory; and I fear, like many other fine things, will be for ever involved in doubt. Certain it is 'twas one or t'other, mounted on a steady going drag called the North Devon, a pretty girl beside me, flanked by a fat old fellow as deaf as a post (luckily), whom she honored with the endearing name of father. It is so much the fashion now-a-days to be circumstantial in one's account, that I beg to inform my readers my sacred person was shut up in a Brighton beaver, whose sidepocket was well stored with some of the best Havannahs I could procure from Fribourg's boutique (an article by-the-bye without which a man must be mad to

[blocks in formation]

Yet thy true lovers more admire by far

Thy naked beauties-give me a cigar.

[ocr errors]

Poor Raleigh! he "did the state some service" when he introduced this leaf, and should at least have been allowed to carry his head on his shoulders a few years longer as a reward; but 'tis vain to talk of the world's gratitude. Alas! there is none! "Blow, blow thou wintry wind, Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude."

These exquisite lines were written by one who knew human nature well (as his works can testify); with what truth the hearts of all who peruse them can best tell. But the North Devon is ready to start: coachee, with his broad-brimmed castor and coat of many capes, has his foot on the last step, and will in a moment be safely seated on his box. Hark! "All right!" shouts the guard, crack goes the whip, and away down Piccadilly tools another cargo of men, children, band-boxes, and fish-baskets.

I am ashamed to say our journey began and ended without a single adventure to dignify its progress. People were most provokingly civil; teas, breakfasts, and such like things, absolutely "not so bad," everything seemed deter

mined to go on smoothly; and we hadn't so much as the satisfaction of losing a man off the coach, running down an old woman, or even scolding a waiter. Indeed, if it hadn't been rather considerably and unpleasantly cold, we might have positively arrived at Taunton without knowing we had been out of our bed. Spite, however of the cold, I could have slept soundly, had my companions been none but the fat old Gentleman as "deaf as a post;" but he had a pretty daughter, as I have before observed; and what mortal on earth, even when half-frozen, could resist turning towards a pair of bright eyes, sparkling most alluringly! Just the eyes too that I love, for they were neither black nor blue, but that colour, which, like the chamelion, is sometimes one, sometimes the other, always changing, but in all its changes beautiful-I mean the soft hazle.

"Pour moi ni noir, ni bleu, je dis,
Plutot the hazle eye for me:
In these, je trouve assez de noir,
Pour bien souffire in making war.
In these, je trouve assez de bleu,
Pour dire les mots, I will love you;
Ainsi, the hazle eyes, if any,
Qui brulent au front de Mademoiselle."

"Twas with something like a sigh I bade adieu to my fair compagnon de voyage, as we descended from our high station at Taunton, after a most uninterestingly safe journey at nine miles an hour. By-the-bye, those who love breakneck adventures should have mounted the Subscription or Defiance coaches last summer, when I understand they did the distance from Exeter to town at the rate of fourteen miles the hour! and killed twenty horses in six weeks!! However, finding a most

beggarly account of empty seats, they left off their mad pace, and took to something reasonable. People don't like to be galloped to the Devil quite so fast!

At Taunton I was greeted with the warm welcome of the friend who had invited me down, and a dear friend he is, (and I trust ever will be,) the companion of my boyish days. We had graduated together at Alma Mater; and though I cannot, like an old soldier, boast of the fields we had won, or the dangers we had run, I could, if so inclined, tell of many a skirmish amongst the Snobs, full many a hair-breadth escape from Proctors vile.

These and sundry

other exploits had drawn us towards each other by the magic chord of sympathy, till we became sworn friends, and have never yet broken the league of amity thus formed. How delicious, after a long separation, is the meeting between two kindred souls! how much has each to ask, and hear, and impart ! how forcibly are the scenes of former days recalled to the mind one after another in endless succession,

"Like the waves of the summer, as one dies away,

Another as bright and as shining comes

on !"

and we lose in the happiness of the moment the painful recollection that we are not what we were; that the dark curtain once dividing us from the world has been withdrawn, and shewn us its hollowness and deceit. But soon is the illusion dispelled: the opening of a door or entrance of a servant will in a moment put to flight these blissful visions; and knock down castles upon whose erections much pains have been taken;

which, like waking out of a delightful dream to the cold realities of life, brings with it a sensation by no means pleasant. However, such things will be, and upon the whole, perhaps 'tis for the best; for in the pleasures of retrospection, great as I must think them, who has not tasted that bitter drop of gall which ever mingles with the honey? Memory, as she shines over the page of life thus opened to her view, will pause at some particular spot, will linger at the word regret, and make us feel there are some we can never cease to lament; some for whose loss the wide world cannot compensate. Thus did we feel as we sat by our cosey fire, running over every event of our youthful lives, sometimes smiling, much oftener sighing, as we remembered how many who had with us commenced the race of life, had been cut off in the midst of their career. Ah! that Death, he is an awful visitor, and not to be denied. There is no such thing as saying "not at home" to him.

Speaking of Death, I cannot but think our countrymen are alarming themselves just now needlessly about the Cholera: one really hears nothing else in the streets but the words Cholera and Reform; and it is an even bet which is to do the most mischief. "Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof!" I would, therefore, advise people to think as little as possible about it. Let them be cleanly and temperate, of course, because these are virtues at all times essential to happiness. For myself, I feel no extraordinary fear, knowing we shall not die a bit sooner than at the appointed time, and know

ing too that death in many shapes hovers over us continually : "Death distant? No, alas! he's ever with us,

And shakes his dart at us,in all our doings.” And to order our lives so as to be ready at all times to obey his call, is the duty of every Christian.

Though I may be thought rather officious, I cannot refrain giving a short sketch of the study of my friend, who, although a reader of the Word, has a considerable share of the fox-hunting blood in his veins, of which passion his studio bore the most unequivocal signs. At the end of the room is a book-case well stored with ancient and modern works, amongst the latter of which the Sporting Magazine holds a distinguished place. Instead of a bust of Socrates, or any of the learned personages who are usually perched above their works, my friend has elevated a full-grown greyhound fox, looking most extremely naťʼral, and as if just about to break covert. The walls are hung with antlers of the red deer, and sundry fox-brushes earned by him in the honorable service of the field. Portraits of some of the varmint coursers of the Market, pictures illustrative of the chase, some proof prints of the Colleges at Cambridge, and couple of views of his church, complete the decorations. In the window stand the finest specimens of the Sheldrake duck and wild goose, stuffed (not with sage and onions) I ever saw, both captured by my friend. weather glass which by-thebye saved me one or two wet jackets-hangs behind the door; and every corner of the room is

a

Own

A

« ПредишнаНапред »