CHAPTER CXXXVIII. doubtful pedigree of ecliPSE. SHAKESPEar (n. b. NOT WILLIAM) AND OLD MARSK. A PECULIARITY OF THE ENGLISH LAW. Lady Percy. But hear you, my Lord! SHAKESPEAR. AFTER having made arrangements with the owner of the barn for the accommodation of the Mare in-the-straw, the Doctor and Nicholas pursued their way to Doncaster on foot, the latter every now and then breaking out into exclamations of the Lord bless me! and sometimes with a laugh of astonishment annexing the Lord's name to a verb of opposite significa tion governing a neuter pronoun. Then he would cry, Who would have thought it? Who'll believe it? and so with interjections benedictory or maledictory, applied indiscriminately to himself and Miss Jenny and the foal, he gave vent to his wonder, frequently however repeating his doubts how the come-by-chance, as he called it, would turn out. A doubt to the same purport had come across the Doctor; for it so happened that one of his theories bore very much in support of Nicholas's unfavourable prepossession. Eclipse was at that time in his glory; and Eclipse was in the case of those children who are said by our Law to be more than ordinarily legitimate, tho' he was not like one of these double legitimates enabled at years of discretion to chuse for himself between the two possible fathers. Whether Eclipse was got by Shakespear or by Old Marsk was a point of which the Duke of Cumberland and his Stud Groom at one time confessed themselves ignorant; and though at length, as it was necessary that Eclipse should have a pedigree, they filiated him upon Old Marsk, Dr. Dove had amused himself with contending that the real cause of the superiority of that wonderful horse to all other horses was, that in reality he was the Son of both, and being thus doubly begotten had derived a double portion of vigour. It is not necessary to explain by what process of reasoning he had arrived at this conclusion; but it followed as a necessary inference that if a horse with two Sires inherited a double stock of strength, a horse who had no Sire at all must, pari ratione, be in a like proportion deficient. And here the Doctor must have rested had he not luckily called to mind that Canto of the Faery Queen in which The birth of fayre Belphobe and Of Amorett is told. how wondrously they were begot and bred Through influence of the Heavens fruitfull ray. Miraculous may seem to him that reades So strange ensample of conception; But reason teacheth that the fruitfull seedes Doe life conceive, and quick'ned are by kynd; So after Nilus' inundation Infinite shapes of creatures men doe fynd Informed in the mud on which the Sunne hath shynd. Great Father he of Generation Is rightly called, th' Authour of life and light; And his faire sister for creation Ministreth matter fit, which tempred right With heate and humour breedes the living wight. So delighted was he with this recollection, and with the beautiful picture of Belphœbe which it recalled, that he would instantly have named the foal Belphœbe,—if it had happened to be a filly. For a moment it occurred to him to call him Belphœbus; but then again he thought that Belphœbus was too like Belphegor, and he would not give any occasion for a mistake, which might lead to a suspicion that he favoured Nicholas's notion of the Devil's concern in the business. But the naming of this horse was not so lightly to be decided. Would it have been fitting under all the circumstances of the case to have given him any such appellation as Buzzard, Trumpeter, Ploughboy, Master Jackey, Master Robert, Jerry Sneak, Trimmer, Swindler, Deceiver, Diddler, Boxer, Bruiser, Buffer, Prize-fighter, Swordsman, Snap-would it have been fitting I say to have given to a Colt who was dropt almost as unexpectedly as if he had dropt from the clouds,—would it I repeat have been fitting to have given him any one of these names, all known in their day upon the Turf, or of the numberless others commonly and with equal impropriety bestowed upon horses. |