472 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



,90,000 to ,30,000," and that "the Napoleon of the Turf" was thereupon bluffed 

 out of the room. I think Greville gives a more correct version of that transaction 

 when he writes on June 6th of that year : " I have been very slightly concerned 

 in this great speculation, but larger sums have been wagered on it than ever were 

 heard of before. George Bentinck backed a horse of his called Gaper (and not 

 a good one) to win about ,120,000. On the morning of the race the people 

 came to hedge with him, when he laid the odds against him to ,7000 ; ,47,000 to 

 ,7000 I believe in all. He had three bets with Kelburne of unexampled amount. 

 He laid Kelburne 13,000 to 7000 on Cotherstone (the winner) against the British 

 Yeoman, and Kelburne laid him 16,000 to 7000 against Gaper." 



With one more quota- 

 tion from the writer of 

 these memoirs, I must 

 leave Lord George ; and 

 I copy Greville's words in 

 this place because they 

 seem to me a fair estimate 

 of a very complex cha- 



" Cossack "by" Hetmann Plato/" ( 1 844) 



under the disadvantage 

 of strong prejudice, but 

 written as justly as most 

 of us can ever judge 

 our contemporaries, and 

 written by one who 

 probably knew his cousin more intimately than any one else. 



Lord George, says Greville, "desired to win money, not so much for the 

 money, as because it was the test and trophy of success ; he counted the thousands 

 he won after a great race as a general would count his prisoners and his cannon 

 after a great victory ; and his tricks and stratagems he regarded as the tactics and 

 manoeuvres by which the success was achieved. Not, probably, that the money 

 itself was altogether a matter of indifference to him : he had the blood of General 

 Scott in his veins, who won half a million at hazard, and the grandson most likely 

 chassait de race. But to do him justice, if he was ' alieni appetens ' he was ' sui 

 profusus." : Certainly it did not look as if he raced merely for money when 



