1835 THE LORDS 201 



life ' at a fixed sum. We have already encountered 

 him in the character of a ' dun,' when he applied to 

 George Selwyn, the wit, for payment of a debt of 

 honour. Which of this noble Earl's characteristics it 

 was that made him so very popular — whether it was 

 the horse-racing or the hunting, to which he was 

 equally devoted, or the cock-fighting in the drawing- 

 room, or the late suppers and the cavalier treatment 

 of the long-suffering cook, or the elevation of an 

 actress to be the wearer of a coronet — is not easy to 

 determine ; but his popularity was tremendous, and, 

 ' Ah, he was English, sir, from top to toe ! ' was said 

 of him by an admirer, with tears in his eyes, who was 

 probably himself a cock-fighter. 



Lord Egremont is he who ran Claret for a Jockey 

 Club Plate in 1787, and of whom Horace Walpole, 

 we find, wrote (1774) : ' Lord Thomond is dead . . . 

 could not bring himself to make a will . . . and the 

 whole real estate falls to his nephew, L. E.' He was 

 to have married Walpole's niece, Lady Maria Walde- 

 grave, but thought better (or rather very much worse) 

 of it (for which he is roundly abused by the moralist 

 of Strawberry Hill), and ' opted ' to live unmarried 

 with a Miss Ilifte (who bore the name of Mrs. Wynd- 

 ham). He is said to have ' begun life with 45,000£. a 

 year, and ended with 81,000L a year.' He naturally 

 took to Newmarket and horse-racing and horse- 

 breeding (witness Thomond House there, and the 

 Earl of Thomond's stud in the time of Charles the 



