back colour to his cheeks or hope to his heart. He was a broken man
before he had reached his prime, and he realised that his sun was near
its setting. When he returned to England no one who saw him could doubt
that the end was at hand. But his ruling passion remained strong to the
last. He was advised by his friends to stay away from the Doncaster
races; but he would go, though he could only with difficulty hobble on
crutches.

The last pathetic glimpse the world caught of this former idol of the
Turf was as, from a basket-carriage, with pale, haggard face and
straining eyes, he watched Athena, a beautiful mare which had once been
his, win a race. As she was being led to the weighing-house he struggled
from his carriage, hobbled on his crutches up to the beautiful animal,
and lovingly patted her glossy neck.

Such was the last appearance of the ill-fated Marquess on a scene of his
former triumphs. For a few months longer he made a gallant fight for
life. He even contemplated another voyage, and a winter in Egypt; but,
almost before winter had set in, on the 11th November 1868, he gave up
the struggle and drew his last breath--"leaving neither heir to his
honours nor the smallest vestige of his ruined fortune; but leaving, in
spite of his final failure, the memory of a true sportsman, and of a
perfect gentleman who was no man's enemy but his own."

* * * * *

Before the Marquess of Hastings had mounted his first pony another
meteor of the Turf, equally dazzling, had flashed across the sky, and
been merged in a darkness even more tragic than his own.

Lord William George Frederick Cavendish Bentinck, commonly known and
loved as "Lord George," who was cradled at Welbeck in February 1802, was
the second son of the fourth Duke of Portland, a keen sportsman who won
the Derby of 1809 with Teresias. The boy thus had the love of sport in
his veins; and a passion for racing was the dominant note in his too
brief life from the day, in 1833, when he started a small stud of his
own, to that fatal day on which, piqued by his repeated failure to win
the coveted "blue riband," he sold every horse in his stables at a word,
and abandoned the Turf in despair.

"Lord George Bentinck," wrote Thormanby, a few years ago,
"was the idol of the sportsmen of his own day. The
commanding personality of the man threw a spell over all
with whom he was brought into contact; they were