138 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



runner, and seems to have laid himself out to become 

 the temporary possessor of every noted horse of his 

 day ; and among them the celebrated Priestess (bred 

 by the Rev. Mr. Hewgill, of Hornby Grange, North- 

 allerton, Yorkshire), by Matchem, and the great 

 Paymaster (ex-Jesmond), sire of Paragon. There is 

 some reason to think that he belonged to the Strodes, 

 of whom one married a sister of the then Lord 

 Salisbury, and was M.P. for Pleading; and he not 

 improbably could claim relationship with the Strode 

 who was one of the famous ' five members.' He was 

 for awhile a brilliant meteor upon the Turf, but he 

 disappears as abruptly and as unnoticed from the 

 records as if, in the expressive American phrase, he 

 had ' gone under ' ; an ending very likely to have 

 been brought about by his apparently reckless expen- 

 diture. 



Mr. Swinburne, in whose name Alipes (dam of 

 Lord Grosvenor's Grasshopper and Imogen) won a 

 Jockey Club Plate in 1761, was William Swinburne, 

 Esq., of Long Witton, Northumberland, belonging to 

 a very ancient and distinguished family, and con- 

 spicuous as one of the very great Northern lights of the 

 Turf, the head of the famous ' Northumberland Con- 

 federacy,' which did great execution on the race-courses 

 both North and South, and owned the famous Wildair 

 (son of Cade), imported temporarily by Colonel 

 Delancey into America (where he became the sire of 

 many celebrated horses and mares), but re-purchased 



