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.
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