236 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



(which we then should have clear) ? . . . Newmarket was charming, all the charm- 

 ino- men were there. Dear Mr. Meynell lost sums of money on a horse of my brother s, 

 beat by the little mare Hermionc of Mr. Calvert ; its name was Good-wood, and got by 

 Brilliant ; but I hear he has made up all his losses again at cards at Euston, where 

 the Duke and all the Newmarket folks are ; he, a fat wretch, has won everything on 

 earth; poor dear Mr. Greville has lost; Sir John Moore has lost near .5.000 

 between quinze and horses. Lord Orford has taken to hawking larks . . poor 

 Lord Rockingham was there." Again on July 12th, 1765, she writes from Barton : 

 There was a meeting of two days at Newmarket this time of year, to see the sweetest 

 little horse run that ever was ; his name is Gimcrack, he is delightful. Lord 



Rockingham, the Duke 

 of Gra.ton, and General 

 Con way kissed hands 

 the day Gimcrack ran. 

 I must say I was more 

 anxious about the horse 

 than the Ministry." 



Among the racing 

 ladies whom Lady 

 Sarah would be likely 

 to meet when she was 

 Sir Charles Bunbury's 

 wife, and to hear of 

 when she was a quiet 

 matron, were Lady Cra- 

 ven ^the Margravine of Anspach), the Countess of Northumberland, Lady Catherine 

 Powlett, Lady Bampfylde, Miss Nancy Forster, Miss Martindale, the Duchess 

 of Rutland, Lady Essex ; and in slightly later years, the lovely Georgiana, 

 Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Williamson, Lady Haggerstone, and the 

 Duchess of Grafton ; until at the beginning of the nineteenth century appeared 

 Lady Shelley, and the Miss Alicia Meynell, known as Mrs. Thornton, who rode 

 the famous matches against Captain Flint and Francis Buckle. With this last 

 amazon seems to have begun a period when the ladies of the Turf were both 

 more numerous and less exclusive, and though there was certainly a kind of inter- 

 regnum during which the best of the fair sex were conspicuous by their absence, that 



By permission of Sir Walter Gilbcy. 



" Gimcrack." (1/60.) 



