LORD DORCHESTER. 247 



the Derby, who died a young man in straitened 

 circumstances, having led a life of celibacy. Mr. R. 

 Etwall paid me a visit at Cholderton Lodge in 1882; 

 the chief object in doing so was to tell me of a letter 

 that he had written anonymously to the papers, saying 

 how r much he liked ' The Racehorse in Training ' — a 

 letter I never saw. He was then in straitened circum- 

 stances. He lived till over eighty, earning his liveli- 

 hood by his pen, as a contributor to the papers. He 

 came of a long-lived family, his mother dying a few 

 years before him, at the patriarchal age of ninety-eight. 

 Lord Dorchester had but few horses. He bred, in 

 1841, the celebrated Little Red Racer mare, who, for 

 want of being christened, remained nameless to the 

 day of her death in 1858. She was out of Eclat, by 

 Edmund out of Squib, by Soothsayer. Her -first 

 produce, The Chase, by Venison, won his lordship a 

 race at Ascot. Then came the celebrated Cruise/', 

 who ran second in the Criterion to the Duke of 

 Bedford's Para in 1854, and Bracken and Buccaneer. 

 Of these two, his lordship sold Bracken to Mr. Gully, 

 and Buccaneer to Lord Portsmouth. The latter, by 

 Wild Dayrell, was a real good horse ; and, after 

 winning the Two-year-old Stakes at Stockbridge, the 

 July Stakes at Newmarket, and the Molecomb at 

 Goodwood, became a favourite for the next year's 

 Derby. He was, however, beat easily; and rumour 

 asserted that he had been poisoned, many people 

 believing that he was. But I should hardly myself 



