THE JOCKEY CLUB IN THE DAYS OF CHARLES JAMES FOX. 237 



momentary whim of fashion was amply compensated for by the unparalleled devotion 

 of ladies of the present day to racing in every shape and form, a devotion which 

 Lady Sarah Bunbury's set would have found it as difficult to understand as to 

 forgive. 



King George the Third's reason for liking Lacly Sarah, apart from her beauty, 

 was, as he told a friend, " because she spoke her mind so frankly and was utterly 

 devoid of guile," a quality which is obvious even from the few extracts of her letters 

 for which I have space here. They throw a better sidelight on details in those times 

 than almost any I have read. In May, 1782, for instance, she tells us : " I am very 

 well, in spite of the influenza, for so general an illness has never been known here in 

 the memory of man." Or again, in September, 1783: "I can tell you no news 

 except that you must sew some black penny ribbon upon every ribbon and gown you 

 have of whatever collour, and say it is ' a la Malbrook,' as Louisa Bunbury is now 

 doing on an old bonnet ; for if you are not 'a la Malbrook ' you are nothing. The 

 reason ? Why, the Dauphine's nurse sung a Flemish song of the death of y e D. of 

 M., and in it his page announces it to y e Dss., lout en noir, and so must your ribbons 

 be." Here and there, too, we hear of Charles James Fox, her constant friend, of his 

 gallantries with Mrs. Robinson, better known as "Perdita," at Sadler's Wells ; of 

 the last three comrades whose company he preferred when he was dying Lord 

 Fitzwilliam, Richard Fitzpatrick, and Lord John Townshend ; of his death, holding 

 his wife's hand to the end, and murmuring at the last, to comfort her, " It don't 

 signify, my dearest, dearest Liz." 



" I rise at six," wrote Carlisle to Selwyn, from Spa, presumably before the sad 

 results Lord Holland noted, " play at cricket till dinner, and dance in the evening 

 till I can scarcely crawl to bed at eleven. There is a life for you ! You get up at 

 nine ; play with Raton your dog till twelve in your dressing-gown ; then creep down 

 to White's ; are five hours at table ; sleep till supper-time ; and then make two 

 wretches carry you in a sedan-chair, with three pints of claret in you, three miles for 

 a shilling." There was more variety, at all events, in the career which " Old O." 

 marked out for himself from early youth. From his earliest days, as Earl of March 

 and Ruglen, he is the type of the persistent seeker after pleasure, without scruples, 

 and without the slightest regard for public opinion. The legends of him are awful. 

 But the really most remarkable thing about him is that he brought to this pursuit a 

 quality of hard reasonableness and common sense which seldom go with it. Kven 

 as a young man he betrays this in his letters. They are matter of fact, practical, curt. 



