The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 550, June 2, 1832

SPANISH CHARACTERISTICS—BY WASHINGTON IRVING. ⁶

Enjoyment in Travelling.—We travelled in true contrabandista style, taking every thing rough and smooth as we found it, and mingling with all classes and conditions in a kind of vagabond companionship.

A Miracle.—Near Archidona is a mysterious path by which the Virgin Mary is said to have led Queen Isabella to attack an old Moorish castle on the summit of the mountain: you see this path like a riband up the mountain side; but the miracle is, that though it can be seen at a distance, when you come near it disappears!

Imaginary Treasures.—The thirsty man dreams of fountains and running streams; the hungry man of ideal banquets; and the poor man of heaps of hidden gold: nothing certainly is more magnificent than the imagination of a beggar.

Spaniards.—There is a natural talent or mother wit, as it is called, about the Spaniards, which renders them intellectual and agreeable companions, whatever may be their condition in life, and however imperfect may have been their education: add to this they are never vulgar, nature has endowed them with an inherent dignity of spirit.

Garden of Lindaraxa.—"How beauteous is the garden!" says an Arabic inscription, "where the flowers of the earth vie with the stars of heaven, what can compare with the vase of yon alabaster fountain, filled with crystal water? Nothing but the moon in her fulness, shining in the midst of an uncloudless sky!"

Transitions of Decay.—I have often observed that the more proudly a mansion has been tenanted in the day of its prosperity, the humbler are its inhabitants in the day of its decline, and that the palace of the king, commonly ends in being the nestling place of the beggar.

A Factotum.—A portly old fellow with a bottle nose, who goes about in a rusty garb with a cocked hat of oil-skin and a red cockade. He is one of the legitimate sons of the Alhambra, and has lived here all his life, filling various offices; such as deputy alguazil, sexton of the parochial church, and marker of a fives-court established at the foot of one of the towers. He is as poor as a rat, but as proud as he is ragged, boasting of his descent from the illustrious house of Aguilar, from which sprang Gonsalvo of Cordova, the grand captain. Nay, he actually bears the name of Alonzo de Aguilar, so renowned in the history of the conquest. It is a whimsical caprice of fortune to present, in the grotesque person of this tatterdemalion, a namesake and descendant of the proud Alonzo de Aguilar, the mirror of Andalusian chivalry, leading an almost mendicant existence about this once haughty fortress, which his ancestor aided to reduce: yet such might have been the lot of the descendants of Agamemnon and Achilles, had they lingered about the ruins of Troy.

MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS

ORIGIN OF EPSOM RACES

(Concluded from page 331.)

"At this period⁷ there were many capital thorough bred horses in England, the most celebrated of which were the famed Arabians Darley and Godolphin, from which the best horses have been traced for nearly a century. They produced stock of vast size, bone and substance; and were, at the same time, endowed with such extraordinary, and before unheard of, powers of speed, as to render it probable that some of them have reached nature's goal, or ultimate point of perfection.

"From the former of these horses descended Flying Childers. He is said to have never run a race, except at Newmarket, where he beat, with ease, the best horses of his time.

"In October, 1722, he beat Lord Drogheda's Chaunter, each carrying ten stone, over a six mile course, for 1,000 guineas. At six years of age, he ran a race, carrying 9 stone 2lbs. against Almanzor and Brown Betty, over the round course at Newmarket, three miles six furlongs, and ninety-three yards, in six minutes and forty seconds! to perform which, he must have moved eighty-two feet and a half in a second of time, or at the rate of nearly one mile in a minute.

"This is the greatest speed yet known of a horse, many have approached, but not equalled it.

"To continue the list of celebrated race horses would extend this article (already it is feared too long) beyond our limits. We will therefore close it with the following account of Eclipse, a horse whom fame ranks second in the list, and whose history is more closely connected with Epsom than those already described.

"Eclipse was first the property of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, and was foaled during the great eclipse in 1764, from which he received his name. He was a chestnut horse, and at the death of his royal master was purchased by Mr. Wildman, who subsequently sold a moiety, and then the whole of his interest in him, to Colonel O'Kelly, who resided at Clay-hill, Epsom.

"Mr. Wildman is said to have been in some degree aware of the worth of this colt, when a yearling, and to have taken the following measures in order to make sure of him. When he arrived at the place of sale, Mr. Wildman produced his watch, and insisted that the auction had commenced before the hour announced in the advertisements, and that the lots sold should be put up again. In order, however, to prevent a dispute, it was agreed by the auctioneer and company that Mr. Wildman should have his choice of any particular lot; by which he secured Eclipse at the moderate price of 70 or 75 guineas.

"Mr. Lawrence remarks, that previously to Eclipse's running for the King's plate at Winchester, in 1769, Mr. Wildman sold the moiety of him to Colonel O'Kelly for 650 guineas, and that O'Kelly subsequently bought the other moiety for 1,100 guineas.

"Eclipse was withheld from the course till he was five years of age, and was first tried at Epsom. He had considerable length of waist, and stood over a large space of ground, in which particular he was an opposite form to the flying Childers, a short-backed, compact horse, whose reach lay in his lower limbs; but, from the shape of his body, we are inclined to believe that Eclipse would have beaten Childers in a race over a mile course with equal weights.

"He once ran four miles in eight minutes, carrying twelve stone, and with this weight Eclipse won eleven King's plates. He was never beaten, never had a whip flourished over him, or felt the tickling of a spur; nor was he ever for a moment distressed by the speed or rate of a competitor; out-footing, out-striding, and out-lasting, (says Mr. Lawrence) every horse which started against him.

"Colonel O'Kelly prized this horse so highly, and treated him with so much kindness, that upon his removal from Clay-hill to Cannons, he had a carriage built for conveying Eclipse to his new abode, his feet being, at the close of his life, too tender for walking. The carriage was something like a covered wagon, but not so wide, and was drawn by two horses. Eclipse stood in the carriage with his head out of a window, made for that purpose, and in this situation many of the inhabitants saw him pass through the town, from one of whom we received our information. This celebrated racer died in February 1789, aged twenty-five years.

"When the races on Epsom Downs were first held periodically, we have not been able to trace with accuracy; but we find that from the year 1730, they have been annually held in the months of May or June, and about six weeks previously to which, the hunter's stakes are occasionally run for on the Epsom race course, at one of which, in 1730, the famous horse, Madcap, won the prize, and proved the best plate horse in England.

"The races were for a long period held twice in every year, Spring and Autumn; it was then customary to commence the races at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and after the first or second heat, the company usually returned into the town to dinner. In the afternoon they again assembled on the downs, and the races for the day were then finished.

"This arrangement has been long discontinued, and the races are now annually held on the downs, adjoining the town, on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday immediately preceding Whitsuntide, except when Easter Monday happens in March; in which case the races are held a fortnight later than usual, in pursuance of certain regulations agreed upon for holding the principal races in the kingdom.

"This has been the practice here since the celebrated Derby and Oaks Stakes were first established at Epsom, the former in 1780, and the latter in 1779.⁸

"Several members of the royal family, and most of the nobility attend these races; and, if the weather be fine, there are seldom less than 60,000 persons assembled here on the Thursday, when the Derby stakes are contested. Of these the vicious and unprincipled form a tolerable proportion; nor is it indeed surprising, where 60,000 persons are assembled to witness a horse race, that these should obtrude themselves, either with the view of propagating vice, or robbing the bystanders."

We ought to add that the volume is by an inhabitant of Epsom, and the profits of its sale have been given to the Subscription School in the town. It is so inaccurately printed, as to make us hope that more attention will be paid to the typography of the next edition; for assuredly so interesting a volume, published with so laudable an object as that of aiding the cause of charity, should extend to more than one edition.

By the way, there is a nice little anecdote connected with the sign of the Queen's Head at Epsom,⁹ which the editor of this volume would do well to insert in his next impression. The above sign, (the original; for we fear the board has been repainted,) was executed by Harlow, the artist of the celebrated picture of the Trial of Queen Katherine, or the Kemble Family. The painter, it will be remembered, was a pupil of the late Sir Thomas Lawrence. He was a young man of consummate vanity, and having unwarrantably claimed the merit of painting the Newfoundland dog introduced in Lawrence's portrait of Mrs. Angerstein, the two artists quarrelled, and Harlow took his resentment as follows:

"He repaired to the Queen's Head at Epsom; where his style of living having incurred a bill which he could not discharge, he proposed, like Morland under similar circumstances, to paint a sign-board in liquidation of his score. This was accepted—he painted both sides: the one presented a front view of her Majesty, in a sort of clever dashing caricature of Sir Thomas's style; the other represented the back view of the Queen's person, as if looking into the sign-board; and underneath was painted, 'T.L., Greek Street, Soho.' When Sir Thomas met him, he addressed him with, 'I have seen your additional act of perfidy at Epsom; and if you were not a scoundrel, I would kick you from one end of the street to the other.'—'There is some privilege in being a scoundrel, for the street is very long,' replied Harlow, unabashed, but moving out of reach of the threatened vengeance. Such is the current story; but there must be some error either in the facts or their date. Harlow was but a youth eighteen years old when he left Lawrence, and too young therefore for a man's resentment; neither had his conduct, a mere tricky slip, been such as to call forth fierce language in a person habitually so cautious and guarded as Lawrence. On the other hand, had Harlow arrived at manhood when it happened, he would not have allowed the words 'scoundrel' and 'perfidy' to pass with impunity. However all this may have been; the pupil quarrelled with Lawrence, and resolving to be master of his own movements in future, commenced working for himself."¹⁰