CHAPTER XXVII 



A visit to Newmarket, then and now, compared — His grace at Egham Races, 

 1801 — An eye to the main chance still — The ways and means 

 adopted by the Duke to fill his coffers — The estates of Neidpath and 

 Drumlanrig denuded of most of their timber — Burns's verses — His 

 lines on Queensberry — Wordsworth's sonnet on his grace's conduct 

 in cutting down the trees — How some of the trees at Drumlanrig 

 were saved. 



The times of which I am writing did not permit of 

 one lying in bed till nine o'clock in London on the 

 morning of a race at Newmarket, and yet arrivmg 

 there in fair time for the day's sport. Preparations 

 had to be made long beforehand, and, if the weather 

 was unpropitious, the delays of broken chaises and 

 quagmires called roads had to be taken into careful 

 consideration. 



The Duke of Queensberry, of course, journeyed in 

 his own travelling carriage. The spirits of the vener- 

 able peer were as yet scarcely dulled by Father Time. 

 But spirits simply were not equal (by reason of 

 bodily infirmities- —ossification of bones, stiffness of 

 joints, and other trifling complaints of the ' church- 

 yard mould-cure ' order of things) to the racking of 



