And Of
The Minster, This Is The Most Remarkable Thing That I Could Hear
It, Namely, That Some Of It
Is so ancient, totters so much with
every gust of wind, looks so like a decay, and seems so near
It,
that whenever it does fall, all that it is likely will be thought
strange in it will be that it did not fall a hundred years sooner.
From hence we came over the Ouse, and in a few miles to Newmarket.
In our way, near Snaybell, we saw a noble seat of the late Admiral
Russell, now Earl of Orford, a name made famous by the glorious
victory obtained under his command over the French fleet and the
burning their ships at La Hogue--a victory equal in glory to, and
infinitely more glorious to the English nation in particular, than
that at Blenheim, and, above all, more to the particular advantage
of the confederacy, because it so broke the heart of the naval
power of France that they have not fully recovered it to this day.
But of this victory it must be said it was owing to the haughty,
rash, and insolent orders given by the King of France to his
admiral, viz., to fight the confederate fleet wherever he found
them, without leaving room for him to use due caution if he found
them too strong, which pride of France was doubtless a fate upon
them, and gave a cheap victory to the confederates, the French
coming down rashly, and with the most impolitic bravery, with about
five-and-forty sail to attack between seventy and eighty sail, by
which means they met their ruin. Whereas, had their own fleet been
joined, it might have cost more blood to have mastered them if it
had been done at all.
The situation of this house is low, and on the edge of the fen
country, but the building is very fine, the avenues noble, and the
gardens perfectly finished. The apartments also are rich, and I
see nothing wanting but a family and heirs to sustain the glory and
inheritance of the illustrious ancestor who raised it--sed caret
pedibus; these are wanting.
Being come to Newmarket in the month of October, I had the
opportunity to see the horse races and a great concourse of the
nobility and gentry, as well from London as from all parts of
England, but they were all so intent, so eager, so busy upon the
sharping part of the sport--their wagers and bets--that to me they
seemed just as so many horse-coursers in Smithfield, descending
(the greatest of them) from their high dignity and quality to
picking one another's pockets, and biting one another as much as
possible, and that with such eagerness as that it might be said
they acted without respect to faith, honour, or good manners.
There was Mr. Frampton the oldest, and, as some say, the cunningest
jockey in England; one day he lost one thousand guineas, the next
he won two thousand; and so alternately he made as light of
throwing away five hundred or one thousand pounds at a time as
other men do of their pocket-money, and as perfectly calm,
cheerful, and unconcerned when he had lost one thousand pounds as
when he had won it. On the other side there was Sir R Fagg, of
Sussex, of whom fame says he has the most in him and the least to
show for it (relating to jockeyship) of any man there, yet he often
carried the prize. His horses, they said, were all cheats, how
honest soever their master was, for he scarce ever produced a horse
but he looked like what he was not, and was what nobody could
expect him to be. If he was as light as the wind, and could fly
like a meteor, he was sure to look as clumsy, and as dirty, and as
much like a cart-horse as all the cunning of his master and the
grooms could make him, and just in this manner he beat some of the
greatest gamesters in the field.
I was so sick of the jockeying part that I left the crowd about the
posts and pleased myself with observing the horses: how the
creatures yielded to all the arts and managements of their masters;
how they took their airings in sport, and played with the daily
heats which they ran over the course before the grand day. But
how, as knowing the difference equally with their riders, would
they exert their utmost strength at the time of the race itself!
And that to such an extremity that one or two of them died in the
stable when they came to be rubbed after the first heat.
Here I fancied myself in the Circus Maximus at Rome seeing the
ancient games and the racings of the chariots and horsemen, and in
this warmth of my imagination I pleased and diverted myself more
and in a more noble manner than I could possibly do in the crowds
of gentlemen at the weighing and starting-posts and at their coming
in, or at their meetings at the coffee-houses and gaming-tables
after the races were over, where there was little or nothing to be
seen but what was the subject of just reproach to them and reproof
from every wise man that looked upon them.
N.B.--Pray take it with you, as you go, you see no ladies at
Newmarket, except a few of the neighbouring gentlemen's families,
who come in their coaches on any particular day to see a race, and
so go home again directly.
As I was pleasing myself with what was to be seen here, I went in
the intervals of the sport to see the fine seats of the gentlemen
in the neighbouring county, for this part of Suffolk, being an open
champaign country and a healthy air, is formed for pleasure and all
kinds of country diversion, Nature, as it were, inviting the
gentlemen to visit her where she was fully prepared to receive
them, in conformity to which kind summons they came, for the
country is, as it were, covered with fine palaces of the nobility
and pleasant seats of the gentlemen.
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