Mistress Caroll. ‘Tis done; if Venture
Knew but my lay, it would halfe breake his necke now,
And crying a Jockey hay.
[A shoute within.
Julietta. Is the wind in that coast? harke the noyse.
Is Jockey now?
Mistress Caroll. ‘Tis but a paire of gloves.
[Enter my Lord.
Julietta. Still it holds.
How ha you sped, my Lord?
Lord Bonvile. Won! won! I knew by instinct,
The mare would put some tricke upon him.
Mistress Bonavent. Then we ha lost; but, good my Lord, the circumstance.
Lord Bonvile. Great John at all adventure, and grave Jockey
Mounted their severall Mares, I sha’ not tell
The story out for laughing, ha! ha! ha!
But this in briefe, Jockey was left behind,
The pitty and the scorne of all the oddes,
Plaid ‘bout my eares like Cannon, but lesse dangerous.
I tooke all, still; the acclamation was
For Venture, whose disdainefull Mare threw durt
In my old Jockey’s face, all hopes forsaking us;
Two hundred pieces desperate, and two thousand
Oathes sent after them; upon the suddaine,
When we expected no such tricke, we saw
My rider, that was domineering ripe,
Vault ore his Mare into a tender slough.
Where he was much beholding to one shoulder,
For saving of his necke, his beast recovered,
And he, by this time, somewhat mortified,
Besides mortified, hath left the triumph
To his Olympick Adversary, who shall
Ride hither in full pompe on his Bucephalus,
With his victorious bagpipe.”
Newmarket, hitherto, a royal hunting place, was made into a race course in 1640, and we get a peep of what it was like in an old ballad (said to be of about this time) called “Newmarket,” published by D’Urfey, in his Pills to purge Melancholy.