A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



They have a sort of coldness about them which is rather the coldness of the hard 

 man of business than the selfishness of the profligate, who is more often than not a 

 sentimentalist (like George the Fourth) when he writes to his friends. There is 

 nothing of that sort about " Old O." Everything with him is matter of fact, and his 

 humour is chiefly shown in grim sneers at people who were not of the same tempera- 

 ment. He had no sympathy with Selwyn's devotion to the child Mie-Mie, the 

 daughter of the Marchesa Fagniani, and plainly told him he was a fool to mix himself 



Sir Charles Bunbury's "Grey Diomed " (1/85) 

 by "Diomed" out of' Grey Dorimant. 



up with that family. Yet all the evidence goes to show that " Old O." himself was 

 the child's father. He was interested in politics to the extent of continually noting 

 in his letters who was to have this or that place, which from his point of view was 

 all that a man of his class needed to concern himself with. As to the Turf, I have 

 already given instances of his riding his own horses, and it may be well here to add 

 what " Chillaby " Jennings wrote after losing several bets with him. Henry Con- 

 stantine Jennings, of Shiplake, had Royal blood in his veins, and received the 

 nickname just mentioned from the fact that he was rash enough to match the future 



