ver, 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 wa