THE EIGHTH DUKE OF BEAUFORT 



" I have often gone a good pace to cover, but never, 

 I think, so fast as on this day. ' You had better 

 make a start,' said Dick to Mr. Somerset and my- 

 self, as he put him on a whistling bit of blood, and 

 myself on a horse they called the hog-maned pony — 

 strong enough, by the way, to have carried Dan 

 Lambert on the road, and, from his capital fencing, 

 Will Long's favourite hunter in the cub-hunting — 

 * the Duke is going to ride old Mayflower, and he 

 puts her along at a terrible pace.' And so we found 

 it. Although we went very gently till his Grace 

 and his other friends overtook us, we were only 

 thirty-two minutes, from the time I mounted at the 

 stable door, going seven miles over a very in- 

 different cross-the-country road. The old mare 

 slips along at extraordinary speed, although not 

 appearing to be doing beyond eight miles in the 

 hour." 



The magnificence of a lawn meet at Badminton 

 much impressed the chatty chronicler. He tells us : 

 " The fixture for this day was The Lawn, which 

 implies Badmington ^ Park House ; and it generally 

 happens that there are present, not only a numerous 

 field of sportsmen, but carriages filled with ladies 

 and gentlemen from Bath and Bristol, as also from 

 the surrounding chateaus, merely to enjoy the 

 spectacle, are among the crowd. This morning, 

 however, having been anything but a fit one for a 

 spectacle, prevented such an assemblage ; and, al- 



^ Nimrod spells it in this way. 

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