378 RACING CAREER OF SIR W. H. GREGORY. 



rect pen-portraits of heroes of the Turf who to the 

 present generation are mere norainis umhrce. Such 

 patrons of horse-racing as Lord George Bentinck, 

 John Bowes, Fulwer Craven, Squire Osbalcleston, 

 Sir Wilham Massey-Stanley, the fourth Duke of 

 Grafton, the old Duke of Rutland, Mr Sloane 

 Stanley, and others, who were prominent at New- 

 market shortly after her Majesty's accession to the 

 throne, would now be alive and " palpitating with 

 actuality " if Sir William Gregory could have been 

 induced to trace their histories. During the last 

 thirty years of his life, however, politics, literature, 

 and art, engaged his attention to such a degree 

 that, beyond writing a private autobiography for 

 the amusement and instruction of his own family, 

 he had no time or inclination for composing a work 

 de lo7igue haleine on the pursuits of his youth. 

 Sir William had also remarked that writers who 

 undertake to recall the past are often accused, 

 and nearly always falsely, of a secret desire to 

 blacken contemporaries and friends who have 

 passed away. Be this, however, as it may, he 

 died and left no sign. All that remains, there- 

 fore, is to " put together a thing of shreds and 

 patches " from the letters which he has left behind, 

 and from memories of conversations to which he 

 contributed the larefer share. Few men ever lived 

 whose experience was more diversified. Like 

 his L'ish compatriots, he was a man of quick 

 and ready sympathies, to whom quicquid agunt 



