206 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 



ticularly valuable, three heifers sired by Monarch bringing over 

 $500 apiece. Two years was as long as the Captain could 

 abstain from Shorthorn operations, however, and in 1840 he 

 once more established his herd with Mahommed as its head. 

 But the new herd was shortlived and its excellence hardly up 

 to the standard of the original Lady Sarah collection. On Sep- 

 tember 22, 1847, the final dispersion took place under the gavel 

 of William Wetherell (83). 



His athletic achievements were his pride. At a coursing meet- 

 ing where he first met Hugh Watson, he discovered a man after 

 his own heart, and according to DixoN "asked him as if it was 

 a highly intellectual treat, 'Would you like to see me strip 

 tonight and feel my muscle?' " He once walked 1,000 miles 

 in 1,000 hours on a wager. He drove the "Defiance," a coach 

 in which he had both sporting and financial interest, all the 

 miles from London to Aberdeen, some 500, without leaving the 

 box. He won thereby a bet of £1,000, and was so flushed with 

 victory that upon a friend's remark that he must be tired he 

 rejoined, "I have £1,000 that says I can drive back to London 

 again, starting in the mom." He bred a famous race of game 

 fowls, an4 always backed his birds to the limit for pit victories. 



A close friend epitomizes him as "a great eater, a man of 

 fine simple faith and always in condition," and "The Druid" 

 closes his career as follows: 



"On New Year's Day he had always his friends to dinner, 

 and he sat obscured to the chin behind the roun4 of beef which 

 two men brought in on a trencher. Mr. Kinnear was the per- 

 petual Vice and everybody made a speech. The Captain's was 



