Read Ebook: Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol. 3 No. 15 August 1851 by Various

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"Then the boys are never heavily bribed?"

"Not so much as is talked about. Sometimes a likely foal is sent to a training stable, and cracked up as something wonderful. He is entered to run. On trial, he turns out to be next to nothing; and the backers, to save their reputation, put it about that the horse was played tricks with. There is hardly a great race, but you hear something about horses going amiss by foul play."

"Do many of these boys become jockeys?"

"Mostly. Some of them are jockeys already, and ride 'their own' horses as they call them. Here comes one."

A miniature man, with a horsewhip neatly twisted round the crop or handle, opens the gate.

"Well, Tommy, how are you, Tommy?"

"Well, sir, bobbish. Fine day, Mr. Filbert."

Although Mr. Filbert tells us in a whisper that Tommy is only twelve next birth-day, Tommy looks as if he had entered far into his teens. His dress is deceptive. Light trowsers terminating in buttons, laced shoes, long striped waistcoat, a cut-away coat, a colored cravat, a collar to which juveniles aspire under the name of "stick-ups," and a Paris silk hat, form his equipment.

"Let's see, Tommy; what stakes did you win last?"

Tommy flicks, with the end of his whip-crop, a speck of dirt from the toe of his "off" shoe, and replies carelessly, "The Great Northamptonshire upon Valentine. But then, I have won a many smaller stakes, you know, Mr. Filbert."

"Are there many jockeys so young as Tommy?"

"Not many so young," says Tommy, tying a knot in his whip thong, "but a good many smaller." Tommy then walks across the straw-yard to speak to some stable friend he has come to see. Tommy has not only the appearance, but the manners of a man.

"That boy will be worth money," says Mr. Filbert. "It is no uncommon thing for a master to give a lad like that a hundred pound when he wins a race. As he can't spend it in hard-bake, or ginger-beer, or marbles , he saves it. I have known a racing-stable lad begin the world at twenty, with from three to four thousand pound."

Tommy is hopping back over the straw, as if he had forgotten something. "O, I beg your pardon for not asking before," he says, "but--how does Mrs. Filbert find herself?"

"Quite well, thank you, Tommy." Tommy says he is glad to hear it, and walks off like a family-man.

Our interview with Mr. Filbert is finished, and we pace toward the race-course with its indefatigable clerk. Presently, he points to a huge white object that rears its leaden roof on the apex of the highest of the "Downs." It is the Grand Stand. It is so extensive, so strong, and so complete, that it seems built for eternity, instead of for busy use during one day in the year, and for smaller requisitions during three others. Its stability is equal to St. Paul's, or the Memnonian Temple. Our astonishment, already excited, is increased when our cicerone tells us that he pays as rent and in subscriptions to stakes to be run for, nearly two thousand pounds per annum for that stand. Expecting an unusually great concourse of visitors this year, he has erected a new wing, extended the betting inclosure, and fitted up two apartments for the exclusive use of ladies.

We are preparing to ascend, when we hear the familiar sound of a printing machine. Are we deceived? O, no! The Grand Stand is like the kingdom of China--self-supporting, self-sustaining. It scorns foreign aid; even to the printing of the Racing Lists. This is the source of the innumerable cards with which hawkers persecute the sporting world on its way to the Derby, from the Elephant and Castle to the Grand Stand. "Dorling's list! Dorling's correct list! with the names of the horses, and colors of the riders!"

We are now in the hall. On our left, are the parlors--refreshment rooms specially devoted to the Jockey Club; on our right, a set of seats, reserved, from the days of Flying Childers, for the members of White's Clubhouse.

We step out upon the lawn; in the midst is the betting-ring, where sums of money of fabulous amounts change hands.

The first floor is entirely occupied with a refreshment-room and a police court. Summary justice is the law of the Grand Stand. Two magistrates sit during the races. Is a pick-pocket detected, a thimble-rigger caught, a policeman assaulted? The delinquent is brought round to the Grand Stand, to be convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned in as short a time as it takes to run a mile race.

The sloping roof is covered with lead, in steps; the spectator from that point has a bird's-eye view of the entire proceedings, and of the surrounding country, which is beautifully picturesque. When the foreground of the picture is brightened and broken by the vast multitude that assembles here upon the Derby Day, it presents a whole which has no parallel in the world.

Well, to be sure, there never was such a Derby Day, as this present Derby Day! Never, to be sure, were there so many carriages, so many fours, so many twos, so many ones, so many horsemen, so many people who have come down by "rail," so many fine ladies in so many Broughams, so many of Fortnum and Mason's hampers, so much ice and champagne! If I were on the turf, and had a horse to enter for the Derby, I would call that horse Fortnum and Mason, convinced that with that name he would beat the field. Public opinion would bring him in somehow. Look where I will--in some connection with the carriages--made fast upon the top, or occupying the box, or tied up behind, or dangling below, or peeping out of window--I see Fortnum and Mason. And now, Heavens! all the hampers fly wide open, and the green Downs burst into a blossom of lobster-salad!

There they go! Here they come! Where? Keep your eye on Tattenham Corner, and you'll see 'em coming round in half a minute. Good gracious, look at the Grand Stand, piled up with human beings to the top, and at the wonderful effect of changing light as all their faces and uncovered heads turn suddenly this way! Here they are! Who is? The horses! Where? Here they come! Green first. No: Red first. No: Blue first. No: the Favorite first! Who says so? Look! Hurrah! Hurrah! All over. Glorious race. Favorite wins! Two hundred thousand pounds lost and won. You don't say so? Pass the pie!

Now, the pigeons fly away with the news. Now, every one dismounts from the top of Fortnum and Mason, and falls to work with greater earnestness than before, on carriage boxes, sides, tops, wheels, steps, roofs, and rumbles. Now, the living stream upon the course, dammed for a little while at one point, is released, and spreads like parti-colored grain. Now, the roof of the Grand Stand is deserted. Now, rings are formed upon the course, where strong men stand in pyramids on one another's heads; where the Highland lady dances; where the Devonshire Lad sets-to with the Bantam; where the Tumbler throws the golden globes about, with the starry little boy tied round him in a knot.

Now, there is another bell, and another clearing of the course, and another dog, and another man, and another race. Now, there are all these things all over again. Now, down among the carriage-wheels and poles, a scrubby growth of drunken post-boys and the like has sprung into existence, like weeds among the many-colored flowers of fine ladies in Broughams, and so forth. Now, the drinking-booths are all full, and tobacco-smoke is abroad, and an extremely civil gentleman confidentially proposes roulette. And now, faces begin to be jaded, and horses are harnessed, and wherever the old gray-headed beggarman goes, he gets among traces and splinter-bars, and is roared at.

So, now, we are on the road again, going home. Now, there are longer stoppages than in the morning; for we are a dense mass of men and women, wheels, horses, and dust. Now, all the houses on the road seem to be turned inside out, like the carriages on the course, and the people belonging to the houses, like the people belonging to the carriages, occupy stations which they never occupy at another time--on leads, on housetops, on out-buildings, at windows, in balconies, in doorways, in gardens. Schools are drawn out to see the company go by. The academies for young gentlemen favor us with dried peas; the Establishments for Young Ladies , with bright eyes. We become sentimental, and wish we could marry Clapham. The crowd thickens on both sides of the road. All London appears to have come out to see us. It is like a triumphant entry--except that, on the whole, we rather amuse than impress the populace. There are little love-scenes among the chestnut trees by the roadside--young gentlemen in gardens resentful of glances at young ladies from coach-tops--other young gentlemen in other gardens, whose arms, encircling young ladies, seem to be trained like the vines. There are good family pictures--stout fathers and jolly mothers--rosy cheeks squeezed in between the rails--and infinitesimal jockeys winning in canters on walking-sticks. There are smart maid-servants among the grooms at stable-doors, where Cook looms large and glowing. There is plenty of smoking and drinking among the tilted vans and at the public-houses, and some singing, but general order and good-humor. So, we leave the gardens and come into the streets, and if we there encounter a few ruffians throwing flour and chalk about, we know them for the dregs and refuse of a fine, trustworthy people, deserving of all confidence and honor.

And now we are at home again--far from absolutely certain of the name of the winner of the Derby--knowing nothing whatever about any other race of the day--still tenderly affected by the beauty of Clapham--and thoughtful over the ashes of Fortnum and Mason.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

"Charles, my slow heart was only sad," &c.

Nor did the future history of the child belie the augury of this poetic sigh of a fond, yet fearing parent, over the extracted, embodied frailty and fineness of his own being.

Indeed, a circle of evil auguries surrounded the childhood of little Hartley. The calm, quiet eye of Wordsworth surveyed the sports of the child, and finding them those of no common infant, he wrote the poem to "H. C., six years old," where he says--

"Thou art a dew-drop which the morn brings forth, Ill-fitted to sustain unkindly shocks, Or to be trailed along the soiling earth."

His power of youthful fancy and language was wonderful. Not even Scott's story-telling faculty was equal to his. He delighted in recounting to his brother and companions, not a series of tales, but "one continuous tale, regularly evolved, and possessing a real unity, enchaining the attention of his auditors for a space of years." "This enormous romance, far exceeding in length the compositions of Calprenede, Scudery, or Richardson, though delivered without premeditation, had a progressive story with many turns and complications, with salient points recurring at intervals, with a suspended interest varying in intensity, and occasionally wrought up to a very high pitch, and at length a final catastrophe and conclusion." While constructing this he was little more than twelve years of age.

This original tendency and formation are thus described by his brother: "He had a certain infirmity of will--the specific evil of his life. His sensibility was intense, and he had not wherewithal to control it. He could not open a letter without trembling. He shrank from mental pain--he was beyond measure impatient of constraint. He was liable to paroxysms of rage, often the disguise of pity, self-accusation, or other painful emotion--anger it could hardly be called--during which he bit his arm or finger violently. He yielded, as it were unconsciously, to slight temptations, slight in themselves, and slight to him, as if swayed by a mechanical impulse apart from his own volition. It looked like an organic defect--a congenital imperfection."

"Of such materials wretched men are made."

And so it fared with poor Hartley Coleridge. Up, indeed, to the time when he left school, he seems to have been as happy as most schoolboys are--nay, happier than most, in constant intercourse with Mr. Wordsworth, carrying on his English studies in his library at Allanbank, in the vale of Grasmere, and having become acquainted with John Wilson, then residing at his beautiful seat, Elleray, on the banks of Windermere, who became from that time, and continued to the last, one of his kindest friends. Through Mr. Southey's active intervention, he was sent to Merton College, Oxford. His curriculum there was at first distinguished. If inferior in scholarship to many, he yielded to none in general knowledge, in genius, and, above all, in conversation. Ultimately he gained a fellowship in Oriel, with high distinction. But his powers of table-talk became snares to him, and at the close of his probationary year he "was judged to have forfeited his fellowship on the ground mainly of intemperance." Great efforts were made by his father and others to reverse the sentence--but in vain. His ruin was now only a question of time. He repaired to London, but the precarious life of a man of letters was fitted to nurse instead of checking his morbid tendencies and unhappy habits. He next returned to the Lake country, commenced a school in conjunction with another gentleman, and even talked of entering into holy orders. But nothing would prosper with him. His school dwindled away, and he was reduced to make a scrambling livelihood by contributing to periodicals; domesticated the while at Grasmere, in the house of a farmer's widow. Various attempts were made, ever and anon, to make him useful--by taking him to Leeds to edit a biographical work, assisting a friend in teaching school at Ledbergh, &c; but all in vain. To Grasmere he as uniformly found his way back, to resume his erratic existence. In 1845, his mother's death brought him an annuity, which placed him on a footing of complete independence. During all this time he was employed fitfully in literary effort, wrote poems, contributed papers to "Blackwood's Magazine," and delivered occasional addresses to literary societies. He was gentle, amiable, frank; and, notwithstanding his oddities and errors, was a great favorite with all classes in Cumberland. He was, as a churchman and politician, liberal, almost radical, in his opinions. He was a daily reader of his Bible. To the last, he struggled sore to unloose the accursed bands of indolence and sensualism which bound him; but to little purpose.

At length, in the beginning of 1849, he departed this life, after giving various evidences of a penitent spirit. He lies now in a spot, beside which, in little more than a year, the dust of one--alike, but oh, how different!--Wordsworth, was to be consigned. He was in his fifty-second year. "His coffin, at the funeral, was light as that of a child." "It was," says his brother, "a winter's day when he was carried to his last earthly home, cold, but fine, with a few slight scuds of sleet and gleams of sunshine, one of which greeted us as we entered Grasmere, and another smiled brightly through the church-window. May it rest upon his memory!"

THE ORIENTAL SALOONS IN MADRID.

"Come," said Don Philippe to us one evening, "come with me to a ball at the Salon de Oriente, where you will see a picture of Madrilenian life, too characteristic to be overlooked--a miniature of its beauty, its taste, and its profligacy combined, which no stranger who visits the metropolis should fail to note, and studiously observe." Having nothing of greater importance before us, we assented forthwith to the proposal of our entertaining teacher, who escorted us thither, as soon as we could put ourselves in proper trim for the occasion. The first glimpse of the ball-room was like a fairy scene. It was built in imitation of an Oriental palace, tastefully painted and illuminated with glittering chandeliers, in the most brilliant manner. The hall was quite thronged with persons of both sexes, a large proportion of whom were engaged in dancing the "Polka Mazurka," to the inspiring music of a full and splendid band. So exciting was the spectacle, that it was with the greatest difficulty we restrained ourselves for a few moments from rushing into the midst of the throng, and finally we broke from all restraint, and bade defiance to the counsels of Don Philippe, who evidently regarded us in the light of a couple of hot headed youths, whose harvest of wild oats had not yet been fully gathered. Away we dashed into the very midst of the merry sport as if, with military ardor, we intended to carry the place by storm; having secured a pair of female prizes, whose brilliant eyes, like lodestones, had drawn us toward them, while under our sudden spell of excitement we mingled with the concourse of laughing dancers, and became ourselves the gayest of the gay. The bright glances which gleamed around us, from every female eye, were softer than the blushes of the moonbeams! Every cheek was flushed with pleasure; every lip was red with joy! The men were wild with frolic, and the youthful damsels intoxicated with delight. Among the former, whom should I recognize, to my infinite surprise and astonishment, but my faithful guide to Segovia and the Escurial. In his dress he was completely metamorphosed into a fashionable gentleman, with white waistcoat and gloves, and the remainder of his suit of fine black broadcloth. In manners, he had not a superior in the room. Approaching me with respect, but with the polished ease of a man well acquainted with the world, he saluted us with unaffected cordiality, and then invited us to partake of some refreshments with him in an adjoining apartment, expressly intended and adapted for this purpose. We did not wish to offend him by a refusal, and therefore assented to his desire. Seating ourselves at a table together, we called for a favorite beverage among the Spaniards, composed of small-beer and lemon, mixed in proportions to suit the taste of those desiring it. An immense bowl, supplied with a certain quantity of iced lemonade, was first brought and placed in the centre of the table before us. Two or three bottles of beer were then opened and poured into this general receptacle, the contents of which were stirred up briskly with a kind of ladle or large spoon. Each of us then helped himself to the frothy compound, which, at the same time that it is very agreeable to the palate, does not produce the slightest inebriating effect.

PHANTOMS AND REALITIES.--AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

PART THE THIRD--NIGHT.

The interval of suspense to which we were doomed before we received any tidings of Forrester seemed to us interminable; and our speculations on the cause of his silence did not contribute to make our solitude the more endurable. We clung together, it is true; but it was like people on a raft, with our heads stretched out, looking apart into the distance for succor.

Concluded from the July Number.

At last, at the end of a fortnight, there came a note in Forrester's handwriting , signed only with an initial letter, requiring to see me alone in a roadside hostelrie about half a mile inland. The note was cautiously worded, so that if it fell into other hands, its purport would be unintelligible.

I thought this strange; but Forrester was always fond of a little mystery, and on the present occasion there might be a necessity for it. I am ashamed to say, that after I had read this note two or three times, I felt some hesitation about giving him the meeting. The doubt was unworthy of us both; yet I could not help asking myself, over and over again, why he wished me to go alone?--why he appointed to meet me at night?--why he should act under a mask in an affair which demanded the utmost candor on all sides?--and a hundred other uncomfortable questions. Circumstances had made me anxious and distrustful; and I was so conscious of the irritable state of my nerves, that, even while these suspicions were passing through my brain, I made an effort to do justice to my friend by recalling to mind the incidents of our former intercourse, throughout which he had displayed a fidelity and steadfastness that entitled him to my most implicit confidence. Even if it had been otherwise, I had no choice but to trust to him; it was indispensable that we should know the determination of our implacable enemy, and it was through Forrester alone we could obtain that information.

The night was dark and stormy. The solitary walk to the little inn afforded me time to collect myself for an interview which I approached with no slight uneasiness. I had left Astraea behind me in a depressed and fretful mood. She could not comprehend why she was excluded from our councils, and seemed to regard it as a sort of conspiracy to dishonor and humiliate her. Every trifling circumstance that affected her personally was viewed in the same light, with jealousy and suspicion. Poor Astraea! Her life was already beginning to jar with mental discords, and the shadows of the future were falling thickly upon her, and darkening her path.

The hostelrie at which I had the appointment with Forrester stood on the edge of a bleak common. In that part of the country there are many similar wastes, stretching a half mile or more into the interior, covered with a scant and sickly herbage, and presenting on the surface an arid picture of sand, stones, and shells, as if these great, unprofitable pastures had been redeemed from the sea without being converted into available land. There is a salt flavor in the air over these wild inland stretches; the sea seems to pursue you with its saline weeds, its keen winds, and measured murmurs; and the absolute solitude of a scene in which you very rarely meet a house or a tree, is calculated to make a dismal impression on a person otherwise out of humor with the world. I felt it forcibly that night. I thought the northeast wind that swept diagonally across the common was more wintry and biting than usual; and the red light in the distant window of the "Jolly Gardeners" looked as if it were dancing away further and further from me as I advanced across the heath.

At last I reached the inn--a low tiled house, with a tattered portico jutting out upon the road some ten or twelve feet, a few latticed windows, and a narrow passage, lighted by a single candle in a sconce on the wall, leading into a sanded parlor beyond a little square "bar" that looked like the inside of a cupboard, decorated with a variety of jugs, teacups, saucers, and other ware hung up in rows all round. The house was altogether a very tolerable specimen of what used to be called an ale-house in remote country districts; a place suggestive of the strictest caution about liquors, but where you might repose with confidence on an impromptu entertainment of rashers and eggs. It was exactly the sort of house that Forrester would have preferred to a well-appointed hostel in the days of our summer vagrancy, when we used to wander toward Hampstead and Highgate, avoiding beaten tracks and crowded localities, and seeking out for ourselves, whenever we could find it, a secluded "Barley Mow" shut up in a nest of orchards. He had not lost his early tastes--nor had I! That little "bar," with its innumerable samples of delft, threw me back sundry years of my life, to the time when I was free to dream or idle, to go into the haunts of men, or to desert them at will. The incident was a trifling one in itself; but it shot through my heart like a bolt of fire. It was the first time I had gone out and left Astraea alone behind me. I thought of her, seated in her lonely room, brooding over her desolation, and torturing herself with speculations upon the business in which I was engaged: while I?--I was out again on the high road, exulting in a man's privilege to act for myself, with her destiny, for good or evil, at my disposal, and possessing the power of returning into the world from whence I had drawn her, and in which she could never again appear! I?--I was at large once more, with the memories of the freedom and tranquillity I had relinquished tempting my thoughts into rebellion. And she?--alas! she never seemed in my eyes so forlorn and lost as at that moment!

A single glance at the boxed-up "bar," and the honest round face, with a skin-cap over it, that gaped at me behind a complete breastwork of pewter and glass, awakened me from the state of reverie in which I had entered the house. I dare say I looked rather bewildered, like a man just shaking off a fit of abstraction, for the honest round face immediately started out of the chair which served as a socket for the body to which it belonged, and without waiting to hear me ask any questions, instantly proposed to conduct me to the gentleman up-stairs, who had been for some time expecting my arrival.

I found Forrester in a small room which was reached by a flight of stairs, so sharp and precipitate, that they looked as if they were inserted on the face of the wall. Having lighted me into the room, the honest face disappeared, and left us alone together.

Forrester stretched out his hand, as I thought, somewhat formally; then motioning me to a seat opposite to him, waited in silence till the landlord had left the room.

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