Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 15 - Ducrow
Ducrow.
A public character, considered to be of the English type, and accustomed to talk about his “’osses,” seems to have been of French descent, and to have had ancestors of a more poetical type, Huguenot martyrs for conscience’ sake. Jan Ducro was a member of the Norwich French Church in 1604, and the name occurs in the baptismal register several times, written sometimes “Du Cro.” The true spelling was Ducros or Du Cros, and refugees of that name may be found in the Naturalization Lists in my vol. ii. So that a descendant of refugees is, perhaps, memorialized in old Tom Hood’s artistically facetious
Blank verse written in rhyme.
“Even is come, and from the dark park, hark!
The signal of the setting sun, one gun.
And six is sounding from the chime, prime time
To go and see the Drury-lane Dane slain,
Or hear Othello’s jealous doubt spout out;
Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride
Four horses as no other man can span.”