236 Life and Times of " The Druid? 



From Done aster Gazette, March, 1855. 

 " Lord Eglinton's Turf Career. 



"In these troublous times for the Turf, 

 when credit is low and bidding still lower 

 at Tattersall's, and when those now left of 

 the gallant red-coated Race Brigade are fain 

 to content themselves with meetings before 

 Sebastopol amid the loud-mouthed diapason of 

 the cannon, in the place of nigger minstrels 

 and of 'Donkey Jimmy' in the distance, 

 we bitterly grudge the retirement of Lord 

 Eglinton. It is harder still that the tartan 

 banner should be hauled down so soon after 

 the narrow blue and white stripes of the 

 Marquis of Exeter, and thus that the Nor- 

 thern and Southern Turf should be bereft 

 within the same season of two noblemen who 

 knew no croooked ways, but went straight 

 as Minie ball to the winning chair. Lord 

 Eglinton was entered to the sport very early, 

 and in 1831, two years before he attained 

 his majority, he first brought out the family 

 colours on the Scottish Turf. Ayr was 

 then his favourite course ; but in later years 

 fortune, which invariably deserted him at 

 York, smiled on him at Doncaster, and he 



