THE HISTORY OF THE BELVOIR HUNT 



down, for when not engaged in war or hunting, he seems, 

 hke many other active spirits, to have been apt to get into 

 mischief. Like his son after him. Lord Granby was a con- 

 vivial soul, and he flinched no more from the bottle than he 

 did from the foe. In his day, and for long afterwards, hard 

 drinking customs prevailed, and there is but little doubt that 

 the great cavalry leader and his son, the statesman of promise 

 and the friend of Pitt, shortened their lives by this habit. 

 The following story told by Horace Walpole gives us an 

 insight into the fashionable life of the day : — 



" I had a card from Lady Caroline Petersham to go with 

 her to Vauxhall. . . . We paraded some time up the 

 river, and at last debarked at Vauxhall ; there, if we had so 

 pleased, we might have had the vivacity of our party increased 

 by a quarrel ; for a Mrs. Loyd,^ who is supposed to be married 

 to Lord Haddington, seeing the two girls following Lady 

 Petersham and Miss Ashe, said aloud, * Poor girls, I am sorry 

 to see them in such bad company ! ' Miss Sparre, who 

 desired nothing so much as the fun of seeing a duel — a thing 

 which, though she is fifteen, she has never been so lucky as 

 to see — took due pains to make Lord March resent this ; but 

 he, who is very lively and agreeable, laughed her out of this 

 charming frolic with a great deal of humour. Here we picked 

 up Lord Granby, arrived very drunk from Jenny's Whim,^ 

 where, instead of going to old Strafford's ^ catacombs to make 

 honourable love, he had dined with Lady Fanny,* and left 

 her and eight other women and four men playing at brag. 

 He would fain have made over his honourable love upon any 

 terms to poor Miss Beauclerc, who is very modest, and did 

 not know at all what to do with his whispers or his hands. 



^ She was afterwards married to Lord Haddington. 



* A tavern at the end of the wooden bridge at Chelsea, at that period 

 much frequented by his lordship and other men of rank. 



^ Anne, daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Johnson, widow of Thomas, 

 Lord Raby, created Earl of Strafford in 171 1. 



■• Lady Frances Seymour, eldest daughter of Charles, Duke of Somer- 

 set (known by the name of the " Proud Duke "), by his second Duchess, 

 Lady Charlotte Finch. She was married in the following September to 

 the Marquis of Granby. 



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