OLD TURF FRIENDS.
An announcement in the morning papers of the death of Mr. Richard
C. Naylor of Kelmarsh, Northamptonshire, at the age of eighty-six,
carried me back to the far-off days when, tempted by the hospitality
and kind friendship of Lord Falmouth, I became a regular visitor of
Newmarket Heath--an _habitué_ during the splendid dictatorship of
Admiral Rous!
I would like to mention the names of some of the celebrities of the
Turf of those days, many of them my frequent companions, and no less
my real and sincere friends. Time, however, fails. But in looking
through the piles of letters with which the kindness of my friends has
favoured me from time to time, I come across many a relic of the past
that recalls the pleasantest associations. Even a telegram, most
prosaic of correspondence, which I meet with at this moment, is a
little poem in its way, and brings back scenes and circumstances over
which memory loves to linger.
It is nothing in itself, but let any one who has loved country
life and enjoyed its sports and its many friendships consider what
forgotten pleasures may be brought to mind by this telegram.
_Telegram_.
DORCHESTER, _November_ 2, '97.
Handed in at QUORN at 9.10 a.m.
Received here at 11.1 a.m.
_To_ SIR H. HAWKINS, The Judges' House, Dorchester.
Just returned from Badminton to find the most charming present from
you, which I shall always regard with the greatest value, and think
you are too kind, in giving me such a present. Am writing.--LONSDALE.
"At _Quorn_," I repeat, and then I find the letter which Lord Lonsdale
was writing. This is it:--
CHURCHILL COTTAGE,
QUORN,
LOUGHBOROUGH,
_Tuesday, November_ 2, '97.
MY DEAR SIR HENRY,--How can I thank you enough for your magnificent
present? It is, indeed, kind of you thinking of me, and I can assure
you that the spurs shall remain an "heirloom" to decorate the
dinner-table (a novel ornament) and match the silver spur poor old
White Melville gave me. Why you should have so honoured me I do not
know, but that I fully value your kindly thought I do know.
Is there any chance of your being in these parts? If so, _do_ pay me a
visit.
And with many, many thanks for your extreme kindness,
Believe me
Yours very truly,
(_Signed_) LONSDALE.
Alas! almost all of them have passed away, yet they will live while
the memory of the generation lasts which called them friends. They
have vanished from the scenes in which they played so prominent a
part, and yet their influence remains.
There was the old Admiral himself, the king of sportsmen and good
fellows. Horse or man-o'-war, it was all one to him; and although
sport may not be regarded as of the same importance with politics, who
knows which has the more beneficial influence on mankind? I would have
backed Admiral Rous to save us from war, and if we drifted into it to
save us from the enemy, against any man in the world. Then there
was his bosom friend George Payne, and the old, old Squire George
Osbaldeston, Lord Falmouth, W.S. Crawfurd, the Earl of Wilton, Lord
Bradford, Lord Rosslyn, Lord Vivian, the Duke of Hamilton, George
Brace, General Mark Wood, Alexander, Lord Westmorland, the Earl of
Aylesbury, Clare Vyner, Dudley, Milner, Sir John Astley ("The Mate"),
Lords Suffolk and Berkshire, Coventry and Clonmell, Manton, Ker
Seymer--the names crowd upon my memory; then, alas! a long, long while
after, Henry Calcraft, Lord Granville, Lord Portsmouth, and "Prince
Eddy," Lord Gerard, the Earl of Hardwicke, Viscount Royston, Sam
Batchelor, and Tyrwhitt Wilson.
These are some of those whom I remember, and, by the way, I ought to
add the Duke of Westminster and Tom Jennings, names interesting
and distinguished, and indicative of a phase of life ever full of
enjoyment such as is not known out of the sporting world, where
excitement lends to pleasure the effervescence and sparkle which make
life something more than animal existence.
This is true in hunting, racing, cricket, and I should think
intensified in the highest degree in a charge of cavalry. Take
Balaclava, for instance: the very fact of staking life at such odds
must have compressed into that moment a whole life of ordinary
pleasure.
I will mention a few more names, and then close another chapter of my
memory. There was Mr. J.A. Craven, the Duke of St. Albans, the Duke
of Beaufort, Montagu Tharp, Major Egerton, General Pearson, Lord
Calthorpe, Henry Saville, Douglas Gordon (Mr. Briggs), Oliver Montagu,
Henry Leeson, the Earl of Milltown, Sir Henry Devereux, Johnny Shafto,
Douglas Phillips, Randolph Churchill, Lord Exeter, Lord Stamford.
Of the famous jockeys and trainers there were John Scott, Mat Dawson,
Fred Archer. There were also James Weatherby, Judge Clark, and
Tattersall.