THE EARL OK WILTON. 127 



It was six-and-thirty years before Tjord Wilton's stud produced 

 another iirst-class animal in Wenlock, who in 1872 won for his 

 lordship the St. Leger, the only classic race credited to him, and 

 the largest stake in bets he ever landed. The third of his good 

 animals was destined to shine only in handicaps ; but the style 

 in which See-Saw won tlie (Jambridgesliire in 1868 and the Koyal 

 Hunt Cup in 1869, stamps him beyond all question as a superior 

 horse, and should his son, Bruce, win the Derby of 1882, the seal 

 will be set to a more than ordinarily successful stud career. 



These are the principal incidents in Lord Wilton's career as a 

 racing man, but there are other phases of his life which are not less 

 interesting to the sportsman, and upon which we may for a moment 

 dwell. Four-and-forty years ago the noble earl, then in his thirty- 

 ninth year, was thus described in the amusing " Chaunt of 

 Achilles," written by Charles Sheridan, and supposed to give the 

 views of the statue in Hyde Park on the persons who, during the 

 year of Her Majesty's coronation, passed by on their way to the 

 Row or the Drive : — 



''Next, upon .switcii-taileJ hay with wuiuleriug eye 

 Attenuated Wilton canters hy, 

 His character how difficult to know! — 

 A compound of psalni-tune.s and tally-ho; 

 A forward rider, half-inclined to preach. 

 Though less disposed to practice than to toacli 

 An amorous hjver with a saintly twist, 

 And now a jockey, now an organist." 



Tliese, however, by no means exhausted the category of Wilton's 

 accomplishments, for he was, besides, an excellent suigeon and a 

 first-rate sailor. Fanny Kemble, in her "'Record of a (Jirlhood," 

 gives a graphic picture of the Earl and Countess at home, when 

 she was their guest at Heat on Park, in 1830, from which we gather 

 that there was ground for Sheridan's satire. For example, she 

 writes ; " Our Sunday at Heaton terminated with much solemn 

 propriety, by Lord W. reading aloud the evening prayers to the 

 whole family, visitors, and servants assembled — a ceremony which, 

 combined with so much of the pomps and vanities of tlie world, 

 gave me a pleasant feeling towards these people who live in the 

 midst of them without forgetting better things." And again : 

 " Lord W., in spite of his character of a mere dissipated man of 

 fashion, had an unusual taste for and knowledge of music, and had 

 composed some that is not destitute of merit ; he played well on 

 the organ, and delighted in that noble instrument, a fiiK^ specimen 

 of which adorned one of the drawing-rooms at Heaton. ^Moreover, 

 he possessed an accomplishment of a very different order, a remark- 

 able proficiency in anatomy, which he had studied very thoroughly. 

 He had made himself enough of a practical surgeon, on the occa- 

 sion of the fatal accident which befell Mr. Huskisson on the day 

 of the opening of the railroad, to save that unfortunate gentleman 

 from bleeding to death on the spot, by tying up the femoral artery, 

 which had been severed." Miss Kemble witnessed the horrible 



