delighted with it that he desired Mr Cooper to paint him a facsimile, which now adorns the walls of Welbeck Abbey, together with the cap and jacket the mare carried, enclosed in a glass case suspended above the picture. The Goodwood Cup of 1845 is also at Welbeck, together with others which the present Duke of Portland has won; and although his Grace has not acquired so much money by betting as fell to Lord George's portion at Goodwood in 1845, it is within my knowledge that he views his equine treasures-St Simon, Ayrshire, Donovan, and others—with as keen appreciation as that with which his illustrious ancestor regarded Crucifix and Miss Elis.

Still further to recognise the services done him, Lord George made handsome presents to every one employed in the Goodwood stable. For all his labourers employed upon the gallops and racecourse (there were about eighty of them in all), together with others employed on the Goodwood estate, he desired a dinner to be prepared; but inasmuch as it was harvest-time, this part of the rejoicing was delayed until the corn was carried; and then all upon the estate were regaled with a most sumptuous banquet in the tennis-court, to which about two hundred guests sat down.

After dinner there was a general expression of hope that another Miss Elis might be found next year, and the only division of opinion was as to the colours which the said successor should carry.

MISS ELIS AND WEATHERBIT.

183

Some hoped it might be "yellow, scarlet cap, and gold tassel"; others inclined to "blue and white cap." At last it was carried unanimously that it was expedient that the two colours be amalgamated, as upon the present occasion.

What was left of the feast was given to the wives and families of the labourers who served the owner of Miss Elis.

Although Miss Elis had won the Stakes and Cup, both races being over a long and severe course, Lord George resolved, much to my regret, to pull her out for the Chesterfield Cup on the last day of the meeting. Her race for the Cup had been a very trying ordeal, as the pace was tremendous, and Weatherbit, whom she beat, was undoubtedly a good horse. Despite the 7 lb. extra which she carried in the Chesterfield Cup, making her weight 6 stone 13 lb., Miss Elis started favourite at 3 to 1 in a field of nineteen. She was beaten a long way, and finished almost last, the Cup being won by Mr Etwall's Ægis, who was seriously disappointed in the Stakes by coming into collision with a post before referred to. From the effects of the two last races Miss Elis never really recovered, and Weatherbit, after his defeat for the Cup, was never the same animal again. In the Doncaster St Leger, won by The Baron, he was beaten a long way, and next day, with odds of 3 to 1 on him, was defeated for the Three-YearOld Stakes of 200 sovereigns each by Sir R. W. Bulkeley's Chertsey-a very moderate horse.

Before concluding this chapter I wish to put on record a few words about the way in which Miss Elis came into his Lordship's possession. She was bred by Mr S. Reed of York, who sent her to Doncaster to be sold by auction as a yearling. Although very light in flesh and rough in her coat, she struck me as being a sound racing-like filly, who would improve upon good keep. I therefore offered Mr Reed forty guineas for her, and a thousand more if she won the Oaks, for which he had entered her. He was anxious that she should get into a good stable, and let me have her at that moderate price. I told Lord George what I had done, and when he saw her he was only too glad to take her on the same terms. Before the end of the Houghton Meeting I tried her with seven other yearlings, and, although beaten, she showed more form than I expected from her, six weeks after I had bought her, a mere bag of bones. Her trial told me, however, that she was game and looked like staying, so that Lord George engaged her in ten races, most of them over long distances of ground. Stockport, her sire, was own brother to Elis and Epirus, both of them good horses; and her dam, Varia, was by Lottery out of a Blacklock mare. She stood rather more than sixteen hands, and although of a very nervous disposition, was as game as a pebble, and liked to make her own running.

CHAPTER IX.

LORD GEORGE AS A LETTER-WRITER.

IN 1864 Lord Beaconsfield remarked to an old friend, who is still living, and has repeated the story to me, that Lord George Bentinck's failure as a Cabinet Minister, or in other words, as a statesman of the first class, would have been inevitable, for the following reasons. "Owing to his incapacity for condensing or compressing what he had to say," added Lord Beaconsfield, "he could not write a letter on any subject without pouring forth at great length all that was in his mind, with the result that to quote some wellknown lines, the author of which I have forgotten, but which still linger in my memory—

'Blenheim's field became in his reciting

As long in telling as it took in fighting.'"

It has been stated to me by other friends of Lord George Bentinck that he assisted to break down his own health by the extraordinary length and prolixity of his letters. I remember that old John Day, the rider and trainer of Crucifix, once ob

served to me "that he had not time to read Lord George's endless yarns about his race-horses at Danebury." It must be remembered, however, that old John Day was not much of a scholar, and that his own letters were of the briefest. I will not deny that my father and I sometimes found it difficult to answer Lord George's letters in full, as they frequently covered six, seven, or eight sheets of note-paper; but, as evidences of his Lordship's astonishing industry, and of the intense interest which he took in the minutest details of a pursuit to which his whole heart and mind were given up, I propose to print a few letters from his pen which were received on various occasions by my father and myself, as I am quite sure that no other owner of race-horses ever wrote to his trainer almost every day of his life, and at such length as Lord George frequently found necessary, in order to express his meaning fully.

I have selected for my purpose a few specimens which will derive interest from the fact that most of them have for their subject what I verily believe to have been one of the three best race-horses ever owned by Lord George-to wit, Gaper. If this horse had been by a sounder stallion than Bay Middleton-say, for instance, Gladiator or Touchstone-I am fully persuaded that he would have won the Derby as easily as in the Criterion Stakes at Newmarket he beat Cotherstone when both were two-year-olds. As matters stood, however,