a 773 THE MISTERS 129 



left to hini by his father, but for some forty years (the 

 duration of his career upon the Turf) he kept up a 

 handsome house, large stabling, vast paddocks, twenty 

 domestic servants, a pack of hounds, huntsman, whip- 

 pers-in, numerous excellent hunters, and an extensive 

 stud of racehorses (whereof the most successful -were 

 bred from the famous Squirt mare, bred by the Duke 

 of Bolton, and purchased from Mr. Hammond, in 

 Cumberland, about 1754) ; but then he married a 

 Miss Hammond, of Naburn, near York, and she 

 brought him a handsome fortune, which, of course, 

 helped to keep him afloat, insomuch that, at his 

 death, his friends were delighted, his enemies were 

 dumbfounded, and the indifferent were surprised to 

 find that, when his stud and other properties were sold, 

 he had died not only solvent (as to which there had 

 been a general and a considerable doubt), but with ' a 

 very respectable surplus ' over his liabilities. The 

 worthy gentleman's death is supposed to have been 

 hastened in so curious a manner that the story 

 deserves to be told. Intelligence reached him that a 

 horse which he had sold to a certain person for a 

 certain sum had been resold to the Prince of Wales 

 (George IV., who always paid, or at any rate promised 

 to pay, far too much) for a great deal more. The 

 shock, it is said, was fatal. Of course this is the Mr. 

 Pratt who is gazetted as having won the St. Leger in 

 1782 with Imperatrix (bred by the Eev. Mr. Good- 

 ricke and very likely his property, run in Mr. Pratt's 



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