SIR NATHANIEL WRAXALL's RECORD 199 



man. To sum up, this authority proceeds to say, if 

 asked to name an individual who had been endowed 

 by Nature with the keenest common-sense of his 

 kind, he would have unhesitatingly selected the 

 Duke of Queensberry. And this in spite of the 

 then scarce faultless purity of his founts of 

 knowledge — the turf, the theatre, the drawing-room, 

 the gambling-table, and that portion of the civilised 

 world called Society. For the study or reading of 

 books his grace at all times manifested to Wraxall 

 a great and unconcealed contempt, and he once put a 

 poser to Sir Nathaniel by asking ' what advantage or 

 solid benefit he had ever derived from their study ? ' 

 (this was asked with more immediate reference to 

 Wraxall's historical knowledge). Wraxall confesses 

 that he was unable to answer this satisfactorily 

 either to himself or his questioner. Sometimes his 

 grace and his newly made friend would fall out, 

 brought about by the octogenarian being rendered 

 irritable from some one or other of his numerous 

 infirmities, but these tiffs were merely passing 'ripples ' 

 upon his otherwise placid temperament, caused by the 

 ills of age. When they occurred, Wraxall knew they 

 would be speedily forgotten and atoned for, as a note 

 in pencil he received from Queensberry after one of 

 these little ebullitions of irritability testifies : ' I hope,' 



