Plate 29. The Horse Race.
This is a very break-neck heat;
And, squire jockey, you are beat.
The artist has pictured a race-course; in the distance the grand stand, a group of tents, and crowds of equestrians and equipages may be distinguished. A file of race-horses, with their jockeys and trainers, are being walked up to the starting point. A crowd of mounted 'sporting gents,' the élite of the patrons of the turf, are assembled round the 'betting post,' shouting the odds and eagerly making their engagements before the approaching start. Nearer the spectator is displayed some of the fun of the course, which never failed to strike Rowlandson's eye. An old dame has a table and an arrow, at which sundry juvenile rustics are gambling for cakes, and a Jew pedlar is tossing with two sportive urchins for nuts. The Dead Heat referred to in Coombe's lines is shown in the person of an anxious country squire, who, afraid of arriving at the betting post too late to speculate, is pushing his horse along madly to arrive in time, without noticing a skeleton steed, neck and neck with his own, whose jockey is the inevitable skeleton, Mors, wearing a gay cap and feather, and turning his dart to account as a riding-whip.
Now Jack was making to the post,
The busy scene of won and lost,
When to all those he saw around,
He cried, 'I offer fifty pound,
That to yon gambling place I get
Before you all.' Death took the bet.
The squire's mare was Merry Joan,
And Death rode Scrambling Skeleton.
They started, nor much time was lost
Before they reach'd the gambling host:
But ere they reach'd the betting pole,
Which was the terminating goal,
O'er a blind fiddler Joan came down,
With fatal force poor Jack was thrown,
When a stone on the verdure laid
Prov'd harder than the rider's head.
Death way'd aloft his dart and fled.
Plate 30. The Dram-Shop.
Some find their death by sword and bullet,
And some by fluids down the gullet.
Death is discovered nefariously at work adulterating the spirit-casks with vitriol and aquafortis.
Plate 31. The Gaming-Table.
Whene'er Death plays, he's sure to win!
He'll take each knowing gamester in.