THE DUKES OF GEAFTON. 27 



appear that he ever patronised any author except the poet Bloom- 

 field, who was born near his country residence. The duke died on 

 the 14th of March, 1811, aged 76. He was married on the 29th of 

 January, 1756, to Anne, heiress of Henry Liddell, Lord Eavensworth, 

 who, after she had been twelve years his wife, and had borne him four 

 children, eloped with John, Earl of Upper Ossory. Having obtained 

 a Parliamentary divorce in March, 1769, the duke, in the following 

 May, married Elizabeth Wrottesley, daughter of the Dean of Windsor, 

 and a near relative of Lord Ossory, who had previously been united 

 to the repudiated duchess. By his second wife the duke had twelve 

 children. "Junius" did not fail to dwell severely upon his grace's 

 indelicacy in marrying a first cousin of the man who fixed upon him 

 that stigma of infamj' which makes a husband at the same time 

 unhappy and ridiculous. In manner and appearance it is said that 

 the duke was equally disagreeable, his countenance being heavy 

 and saturnine, and his deportment haughty, sullen, and repulsive. 

 Altogether his grace does not seem to have been the sort of man 

 whom a person at all particular would have chosen as a bosom 

 friend, yet he was certainly popular in a way among sportsmen, and 

 evidently, in spite of the sneers of " Junius," he was by no means 

 ungenerous, but, on the contrary, in sporting matters especially, 

 whether on the turf or in the hunting field, he showed himself 

 open-handed and even profuse in his liberality. At Euston Hall he 

 maintained a large breeding stud, and he was admitted to be an ex- 

 cellent judge both of breeding and training. It is somewhat singular 

 that the success of the Grafton stud may be traced to one mare, 

 and therefore the history of her is worth recording. In 1756, Julia, 

 by Blank, was bred by Mr. Panton, of great Newmarket fame (her 

 pedigree running back not only to Bay Bolton, Darley's Arabian, 

 and the Byerley Turk, but beyond the Lord Protector's White Turk, 

 generally the ne 'plus ultra of pedigrees to the Taffolet Barb and a 

 natural Barb mare), and at seven years old was put into the duke's 

 stud, and produced Promise, by Snap. Promise produced Prunella, 

 by Highflyer, the dam of eleven first-rate horses, whose names (after 

 the manner of foxhounds) all begin with the letter P, the first letter 

 of the mare's name, and she is said to have realised to the Grrafton 

 family little short of £100,000. In fact all breeders of racehorses 

 try for a strain of the justly-celebrated Prunella. At Euston Hall 

 in 1799 was foaled the duke's first Derby winner Tyrant, by the 

 curiously-named Pot-8-os, out of one of his grace's own mares. 

 Apropos of Pot-8-os, the question is constantly being asked where 

 he derived his singular name ? and we may as well give the traditional 

 story here. It was originally intended to have given the chestnut 

 son of Eclipse the name of Potatoes, which it must be admitted was 

 not itself a high-sounding appellation for a thoroughbred, and when 

 Lord Abingdon, who had bred him, happened to mention his inten- 

 tion to his trainer in the stable, a small stable lad was so much 

 struck with the absurdity of the name that he involuntarily burst 



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