Mr. Burke gives in his gossiping book about the English aristocracy,
the following anecdotes of this once famous person:
"Few men occupied a more conspicuous place about the court and town
for nearly seventy years, during the reigns of the Second and Third
Georges. Like Wilmot Earl of Rochester, he pursued pleasure under
every shape, and with as much ardor at fourscore as he had done at
twenty. At the decease of his father, in 1731, he became Earl of
March; and he subsequently, in 1748, inherited his mother's earldom
of Ruglen, together with the family's estates in the counties of
Edinburgh and Linlithgow. These rich endowments of fortune, and a
handsome person, of which he was especially careful, combined to
invest the youthful Earl with no ordinary attractions, and the
ascendency they acquired he retained for a longer period than any one
of his contemporaries; from his first appearance in the fashionable
world in the year 1746, to the year he left it forever, in 1810,
at the age of eighty-five, he was always an object of comparative
notoriety. There was no interregnum in the public course of his
existence. His first distinction he achieved on the turf; his
knowledge of which, both in theory and practice, equaled that of the
most accomplished adepts of Newmarket. In all his principal matches
he rode himself, and in that branch of equitation rivaled the most
professional jockeys. Properly accoutered in his velvet cap, red
silken jacket, buckskin breeches, and long spurs, his Lordship bore
away the prize on many a well-contested field. His famous match with
the Duke of Hamilton was long remembered in sporting annals. Both
noblemen rode their own horses, and each was supported by numerous
partisans. The contest took place on the race-ground at Newmarket, and
attracted all the fashionables of the period. Lord March, thin, agile,
and admirably qualified for exertion, was the victor. Still more
celebrated was his Lordship's wager with the famous Count O'Taafe.
During a conversation at a convivial meeting on the subject of
'running against time,' it was suggested by Lord March, that it
was possible for a carriage to be drawn with a degree of celerity
previously unexampled, and believed to be impossible. Being desired to
name his maximum, he undertook, provided choice of ground were given
him and a certain period for training, to draw a carriage with four
wheels not less than nineteen miles within the space of sixty minutes.
The accomplishment of such rapidity staggered the belief of his
hearers; and a heavy wager was the consequence. Success mainly
depending on the lightness of the carriage, Wright of Long Acre, the
most ingenious coach-builder of the day, devoted the whole resources
of his skill to its construction, and produced a vehicle formed partly
of wood and partly of whale-bone, with silk harness, that came up
to the wishes of his employer. Four blood horses of approved speed
were then selected, and the course at Newmarket chosen as the ground
of contest. On the day appointed, 29th of August, 1750, noble and
ignoble gamesters journeyed from far and near to witness the wonderful
experiment; excitement reached the highest point, and bets to an
enormous amount were made. At length the jockeys mounted; the carriage
was put in motion, and rushing on with a velocity marvelous in those
times of coach traveling, but easily conceived by us railway travelers
of the nineteenth century, gained within the stipulated hour the goal
of victory."
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