EARLY HORSE RACING.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Kennington, April 16, 1826. Sir,-The following notice of an ancient race, formerly held near Chester, is, I conceive, worthy preservation in your interesting work, which, I hope, in course of time, will treasure up records of every custom, game, or ancient observance, formerly so common in "merry England."

Mr. Lysons, in his "Magna Brittania," says, there are some old articles of a race for two bells among the corporation records, the earliest date of which was in 1512

CHESTER RACES.

In 1609 or 10, Mr. William Lester, mercer, being mayor of Chester, and Mr. Robert Ambrye or Amory, ironmonger, sheriff of the city, at his, the last mentioned person's, own cost, did cause three silver bells to be made of good value, which bells he appointed to be run for with horses " upon St. George's Day,

to the netes, there torning to run up to the watergate, that horse which come first there to have the beste bell; the second to have the seconde bell for that year, putting in money, and for to-and shuerties to deliver in the bells that day twelvemonth." The other bell was run for the same day upon the like conditions. This gave rise to the adage of "bearing the bell." The bells and a bowl seem to have been brought down to the course with great pomp, as the following copy shows, carefully transcribed from the original among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum.*

"The maner of the showe, that is, if God spare life and healthe, shall be seene by all the behoulders upon Set George's day next, being the 23d of Aprill 1610, and the same with more addytion, to continew, being for the kyng's crowne and dignitye, and the homage to the kynge and prynce, with that noble victor St. George, to be continued for ever, God save the Kynge.

It. ij men in greene evies,† set with worke

upon their other habet, with black heare and black beards, very awgly to behould, and garlands upon their heads, with great clubbs in their hands, with firrt works to scatter abroad, to mantain way for the rest of the showe. It. one on horseback with the buckler and head-peece of St. George, and iij men to guide him, with a drum before him, for the hon. of England. It. one on horsebacke called Fame, with a trumpet in his hand, and iij to guide him, and he to make an oration with his habit, in pompe.

It. one called Mercury, to descend from above in a cloude, his winges and all. other matters in pompe, and heavenly musicke with him, and after his oration spoken, to ryde on horsebacke with the musicke before him.

It. j called Chester, with an oration and drums before him, his habit in pompe. It. j on horseback, with the kynge's armes upon a shield in pompe.

It. j on horseback, concerninge the kyng's crowne and dignity, with an oration in It. j on horseback with a bell dedicated pompe. to the kinge, being double gilt, with the kyng's armes upon, carried upon a septer in pompe, and before him a noise of trumpets in pompe.

Harl. MSS. 2150. f. 356. † Ivy. Fire,

It. one on horseback, with the Prince's armes upon a shield in pompe. It. one on horseback, with an oration from the prynce in pompe.

It. j on horseback, with the bell dedicated to the princes. Armes upon it, in pompe, and to be carried on a septer, and before the bell, a wayte of trumpetts.

It. j on horseback, with a cup for Saint George, caried upon a septer in pompe. It. j on horseback, with an oracyon for St. George, in pompe.

It. St. George himselfe on horseback, in complete armour, with his flag and buckler in pompe, and before him a noyse of drums.

It. one on horseback called Peace, with an oration in pompe. It. one on horseback called Plentye, with an oration in pompe.

It. one on horseback called Envy, with an oration, whom Love will comfort, in

pompe.

It. one on horseback called Love, with an oration, to maintain all in pompe. It. The maior and his brethren, at the Pentis of this Cittye, with their best apparell, and in skarlet, and all the orations to be made before him, and seene at the high crosse, as they passe to the roodeye, whereby grent shall be runne for by their horses, for the bells on a double staffe, and the cuppe to be runne for by the rynge in the same place by gennt, and with a great mater of shewe by armes, and thatt, and with more than I can recyte, with a banket after in the Pentis to make welcome the gennt: and when all is done, then judge what you have seene, and soe speake on your mynd, as you fynde. The actor for the p'sent.

ROBART AMORY. Amor is love and Amory is his name that did begin this pomp and princelye game, the charge is great to him that all begun, let him be satisfyed now all is done.

Notwithstanding Mr. Amory exerted himself and entertained the citizens so well in 1610, it was ordered in 1612, "that the sports and recreations used on St. George's day, should in future be done by the direction of the mayor and citizens, and not of any private person." No authority has occurred in my researches on this subject, for tracing the gradual alterations by which the bell and the bowl of these ancient races, have been

* Corporation Records.

OLD GUILDFORD CHURCH. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. whole Island of Great Britain," 4 vols. Mr. Editor,-In "A Tour through the 12mo., there is the following notice of an will oblige a constant reader by inserting accident on St. George's day, which you in the Every-Day Book.

J. H.

On Wednesday the 23d of April, 1740, the upper church at Guildford, in Surrey, fell down. It was an ancient building, and not long before, seven hundred and fifty pounds were expended upon it in repairs. There was preaching in it on the Sunday before, and workmen were employed in taking down the bells, who, providentially, had quitted the spot about a quarter of an hour before the accident happened, so that not one person received any hurt, though numbers were spectators. the other three fell with the steeple, which Three bells had been taken down, and broke the body of the church to pieces, though the steeple received but little damage by the fall.

At Laurie and Whittle's print-shop nearly opposite St. Dunstan's church, Fleet-street," or rather at Jemmy Whittle's, for he was the manager of the concern - I cannot help calling him

Jemmy," for I knew him afterwards, in a passing way, when every body called him Jemmy; and after his recollection failed, and he dared no longer to flash his merriment at the "Cock," at Temple-bar, and the "Black Jack," in Portugal-street, but stood, like a sign of himself, at his own door, unable to remember the names of his old friends, they called him "poor Jemmy!"-I say, I remember at Jemmy Whittle's there was always a change of prints in springtime. Jemmy liked, as he said, to "give the public something alive, fresh and clever, classical and correct!"

One

I am now speaking of five and thirty years ago, when shop windows, especially printsellers', were set out according to the season. I remember that in spring-time "Jemmy Whittle," and "Carrington Bowles, in St. Paul's Church-yard," used to decorate their panes with twelve prints of flowers of "the months," engraved after Baptiste, and "coloured after nature," a show almost, at that time, as gorgeous as "Solomon's Temple, in all its glory, all over nothing but gold and jewels," which a man exhibited to my wondering eyes for a halfpenny.

Spring arrives in London-and even east of Temple-bar-as early as in the country. For though there are neither hawthorns to blossom, nor daisies to blow-there is scarcely a house" in the city," without a few flower pots inside or outside; and when "the seeds come up," the Londoner knows that the spring is come to town." The almanac, also, tells him, that the sun rises earlier every day, and he makes his apprentices rise earlier; and the shop begins to be watered and swept before breakfast; and perchance, as the good man stands at his door to look up, and "wonder what sort of a day it will be," he sees a basket with primroses or cowslips, and from thence he hazards to assert, at "the house he uses" in the evening, that the spring is very forward; which is confirmed, to his credit, by some neighbour, who usually sleeps at Bow or Brompton, or Pentonville or Kennington, or some other adjacent part of "the country."

To the east of Temple-bar, the flowergirl is "the herald of spring." She eries "cowslips! sweet cowslips !" till she screams "bow-pots! sweet, and pretty bow-pots!" which is the sure and certain token of full spring in London. When I was a child, I got "a bow-pot" of as many wall-flowers and harebells as I could then hold in my hand, with a sprig of sweet briar at the back of the bunch, for a halfpenny-such a handful; but, now, "they can't make a ha'penny bow-pot there's nothing under a penny;" and the penny bow-pot is not half so big as the ha'penny one, and somehow or other the flowers don't smell, to me, as they used to do.-

It will not do however to run on thus, for something remains to be said concerning the patron of the day; and, to be plain with the reader, the recollections of forVOL. II.-70.

mer times are not always the most cheering to the writer.

ST. GEORGE.

There are some circumstances in the

history of Russia which abate our pretensions to our celebrated saint. In that country he is much revered. His figure occurs in all the churches, represented as usual, riding on a horse, and piercing a dragon with his lance. This device also forms part of the arms of the Russian sovereign, and is on several of the coins. Certain English historians have conjectured, that Ivan Vassilievitch II., being presented with the garter by queen Elizabeth, assumed the George and the dragon for his arms, and ordered it to be stamped upon the current money. But it does not appear that the tzar was created a knight of the garter; and it is certain that the sovereigns of Moscow bore this device before they had the least connection with England. In Hackluyt, vol. i. p. 255, Chanceler, the first Englishman who discovered Russia, speaks of a despatch sent in 1554, from Ivan Vassilievitch to queen Mary:-"This letter was written in the Moscovian tongue, in letter much like to the Greeke letters, very faire written in paper, with a broade seale hanging at the same, sealed in paper upon waxe. This seale was much like the broad seale of England, having on the one side the image of a man on horseback in complete harnesse fighting with a dragon."

Russian coins of a very early date represent the figure of a horseman spearing a dragon; one particularly, of Michael Androvitz appears to have been struck in 1305, forty years before the institution of the order of the garter in England. From this period, numerous Russian coins are successively distinguished by the same emblem. Various notions have been put forth concerning the origin of the figure; but it seems probable that the Russians received the image of St. George and the dragon either from the Greeks or from the Tartars, by both of whom he was much revered; by the former as a christian saint and martyr, and by the latter as a We know from hisprophet or a deity. tory, that in the fourth or fifth century he was much worshipped amongst the Greeks; and that afterwards the crusaders, during their first expedition into the Holy Land, found many temples erected to his honour. The Russians, therefore, who

were converted to christianity by the Greeks, certainly must have received at the same time a large catalogue of saints, which made an essential part of the Greek worship, and there can be no reason to imagine that St. George was omitted.

In a villa of prince Dolgorucki, near Moscow, is an old basso-relievo of St. George and the dragon, found in a ruined church at Intermen, in the Crimea; it had a Greek inscription almost erased, but the words AIOO TEOPгOO, or St. George, and the date 1330, were still legible. As it appears from this bassorelievo that he was worshipped in the Crimea so near the court of Russia when the great dukes resided at Kiof, his introduction into that country is easily accounted for.

Still, it is very likely that the Russians received from the Tartars the image of a horseman spearing a serpent, as represented upon their most ancient coins, and which formed a part of the great duke's arms, towards the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Russians had none before they were conquered by the Tartars; and soon after they were brought under the Tartar yoke, they struck money. The first Russian coins bear a Tartar inscription; afterwards, with Tartar letters on one side, and Russian characters on the other; and there is still preserved in the cabinet of St. Petersburgh, a piece of money, exhibiting a horseman piercing a dragon, with the name of the great duke in Russian, and on the reverse a Tartar inscription.

The story of a saint or a deity spearing a dragon, was known all over the east; among the Mahometans, a person called Gergis or George, under a similar figure, was much revered as a prophet; and similar emblems have been discovered among many barbarous nations of the east. Whether these nations took it from the Greeks, or the latter from them, cannot be ascertained; for of the real existence of such a person as St. George, no positive proofs have ever been advanced.

But whether the Russians derived St. George from the Greeks or the Tartars, it is certain that his figure was adopted as the arms of the grand dukes, and that the emblem of the saint and the dragon, has been uniformly represented on the reverse of the Russian coins.

With respect to the arms, Herberstein, in his account of his embassy to Moscow in 1518, under Vassili Ivanovitch, has

April 24.

ST. MARK'S EVE. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. JOE BROWN-THE CHURCH WATCH. Sir,-As you solicit communications of local usages or customs, I send you some account of the "Watching the church" on St. Mark's E'en, in Yorkshire. According to the superstitions of some other counties, the eve of St. John's day is the privileged night for unquiet spirits to revisit the upper world, and fit over the scenes of their mortal existence. But, in Yorkshire, it was believed by the superstious and the peasantry within these twenty years, and is so still perhaps, that if a person have the hardihood to place himself within the porch of the church, or in a position which commands the church door, on the ghostly e'en of St. Mark, (it must be St. Mark, O. S.,) he will see the souls of those whose bodies are to be buried at that church the fol

lowing year, approach the church in the dead waste and middle of the night. The doors are flung open by some invisible hand just at twelve o'clock, and the spirits