1773 THE LORDS 57 



last Duke of Queensberry, successor to the Duke whose 

 Duchess was so kind to Gay). How he bred, and 

 owned, and raced, and rode, and betted; and how 

 ingenious he was in his carriage-match (a four-wheeled 

 carriage, drawn by four horses, with a person in or 

 upon it, to do nineteen miles in an hour), and in his 

 wager about transmitting a letter fifty miles in an 

 hour (by enclosing it in a cricket ball, which twenty- 

 four cricketers passed one to another), everybody 

 probably remembers. But it may not be so well 

 remembered that he was disappointed in love, having 

 proposed to Miss Pelhani, niece of the prime minister, 

 Duke of Newcastle, and been rejected by her family, 

 after which both he and she remained unmarried for 

 life (cf. the case of the Duke of Bridgewater), which 

 may have accounted for some of his subsequent 

 career ; and that he is said to have disputed with 

 George Selwyn the paternity of Maria Fagniani, 

 whom the third Marquess of Hertford married, and to 

 whom, it is said, both * Old Q.' and Selwyn left a 

 fortune. It is curious that so great a racer and so 

 * knowing ' a ' hand ' never won the Derby or the 

 Oaks, thou h he tried for both — for the former fre- 

 quently ; but, as his ' knowingness ' has been turned 

 into a weapon against his memory (which has many 

 other more vulnerable points), it may be well to 

 record what was said of him by one of his so-called 

 victims, the unfortunate ' Chillaby ' Jennings (a 

 member of the Jockey Club, of whom more hereafter). 



