Thicket's employment, of sauntering on horseback in the wind and rain until the Reading coach passes through Smallberry-Green, is the more eligible, and no less honest occupation. The sharper has also frequently the mortification of being thwarted in his designs. Opportunities of fraud will not for ever present themselves. The false die cannot be constantly produced, nor the packed cards always placed upon the table. It is then our gamester is in the greatest danger. But even then, when he is in the power of fortune, and has nothing but mere luck and fair play on his side, he must stand the brunt, and perhaps give away his, last guinca, as cooly as he would lend a nobleman a shilling. Our hero is now going off the stage, and his catastrophe is very tragical. The next news we hear of him is his death, achieved by his own band, and with his own pistol. An inquest is bribed, he is buried at midnight, and forgotten before sun-rise. These two portraits of a sharper, wherein I have endeavoured to shew different likenesses in the same man, puts me in mind of an old print, which I remember at Oxford, of Count Guiscard. At his first sight he was exhibited in a full-bottom wig, an hat and feather, embroidered cloaths, diamond buttons, and the full court-dress of those days: but by pulling a string, the folds of the paper were shifted, the face only remained, a new body came forward, and Count Guiscard appeared to be a devil. I am, Sir, Your humble servant, M. N. No. XLI. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7. Qui studet optatam cursu contingere metam, Gownsmen with jockies hold an equal pace, Mr. Village to Mr. Town. Dear Cousin, HOR. THE following letter, occasioned by the late races at Newmarket, and written by a fellow-commoner of.......College, Cambridge, to a friend in London, fell into my hands by accident. The writer, if we may judge by his style and manner, is really, according to the modern phrase, a genius. As I look upon his epistle to be a very curious original, I cannot help demanding for it a place in your paper, as well as for the remarks which I have taken the liberty to subjoin to it. To John Wildfire, Esq; to be left at Mrs. Douglass's Covent-Garden, London. Dear Jack! October 10, 1754. I WAS in hopes I should have met you at Newmarket races; but to say the truth, if your luck had turned out so bad as mine you did better to stay away. Dick Riot, Tom Loungeit, and I went together to Newmarket the first day of the meeting. I was mounted on my little bay mare, that cost me thirty guineas in the north. I never crossed a better tit in my life; and if her eyes stand, as I dare say they will, she will turn out as tight a little thing as any in England. Then she is fleet as the wind. Why, I raced with Dick and Tom all the way from Cambridge to Newmarket: Dick rode his roan gelding, and Tom his chesnut mare, (which you know, have both speed) but I beat them hollow. I cannot help telling you, that I was dressed in my blue riding-frock with plate buttons, with a leather belt round my waist, my jemmy turn-down boots made by Tull, my brown scratch bob, and my hat with the narrow silver-lace, cocked in the true sporting taste: so that altogether I do not believe there was a more knowing figure upon the course. I was very flush too, Jack; for Michaelmas-day happening damn'd luckily just about the time of the races, I had received fifty guineas for my quarterage. As soon as I came upon the course, I met with some jolly bucks from London. I never saw them before; however, we were soon acquainted, and I took up the odds; but I was damnably let in, for I lost thirty pieces slap, the first day. The day or two after, I had no remarkable luck one way or other: but at last I laid all the cash I had left upon lord March's Smart, who lost, you know; but between you and me, I have a great notion Tom Marshal rode booty. However, I had a mind to push my luck as far as I could; so I sold my poor little mare for twelve pieces, went to the coffee-house, and left them all behind me at the gaming-table; and I should not have been able to have got back to Cambridge that night, if Bob Whip of Trinity had not taken me up in his Phaeton. We have had a round of dinners at our rooms since; and I have been drunk every day to drive away care. However, I hope to recruit again soon: Frank Classic of Pembroke has promised to make me out a long catalogue of Greek books; so I will write directly to old Square-toes, send him the list, tell him I have taken them up, and draw on him for money to pay the bookseller's bill. Then I shall be rich again, Jack: and perhaps you may see C.2. me at the Shakspeare by the middle of next week: until when, I am, Dear Jack, yours, T. FLAREIT. I have often lamented the narrow plan of our university education, and always observe with pleasure any attempts to enlarge and improve it. In this light, I cannot help looking on New-market as a judicious supplement to the university of Cambridge, and would recommend it to the young students to repair duly thither twice a year. By these means they connect the knowledge of polite life with study, and come from college as deeply versed in the genteel mysteries of gaming, as in Greek, Latin, and the mathe matics. Attending these solemnities must, indeed, be of great service to every rank of students. Those, who are intended for the church, have an opportunity of tempering the severity of their character, by an happy mixture of the jockey and clergyman. I have known several, who by uniting these opposite qualifications, and meeting with a patron of their own disposition, have rode themselves into a living in a good sporting country; and I doubt not, if the excursion of gownsmen to Newmarket meet with the encouragement they deserve, but we shall shortly see the Beacon Course crouded with ordained sportsmen in short cassocks. As to the fellow-commoners, I do not see how they can pass their time more profitably. The sole intention of their residence at the university is, with the most of them, to while away a couple of years, which they cannot conveniently dispose of otherwise. Their rank exempts them from the common drudgery of lectures and exercises; and the golden tuft that adorns their velvet caps, is at once a badge of honour and an apology for ignorance. But as some of these gentlemen, though they never will be scholars, may turn out excellent jockeys, it is but justice to let them carry some kind of knowledge away with them; and as they can never shine as adepts in Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy, or critics on liomer and Virgil, we should suffer them to make a figure as arbiters of the course, and followers of Aaron and Driver. I am the more earnest on this occasion, becaase I look upon races as a diversion, peculiarly adapted to an university, and founded upon classical principles. Every author who has mentioned the ancient games, includes the race, and describes it with great dignity. This game was always celebrated with great pomp, and all the people of fashion of those days were present at it. In the twenty-third Iliad in particular, there is not only a dispute at the race, but a bet proposed in as express terms as at Newmarket. The wager offered, indeed, is a goblet, which is not entirely in the manner of our modern sportsmen, who rather choose to melt down their plate in the current specie, and bring their sideboards to the course in their purses. I am aware also, that the races celebrated by the ancients, were chariot-races: but even in these, our young students of the university have great emulation to excel: There are among them many very good coachmen, who often make excursions in those noble vehicles, with great propriety called phaetons, and, drive with as much fury along the road, as the charioteers in the ancient games flew towards the goal. In a word, if we have not such noble odes on this occasion, as were produced of old, it is not for want of a Theron but a Pindar. The advices, which I have at several times received of the influence of the races at Newmarket on the university, give me great pleasure. It has not only improved the behaviour of the students, but enlarged their plan of study. They are now very deeply read in |