GOODWOOD AND THE DUKES OF RICHMOND.* BOTH the value and

the charm of this book lie in the fact

that it is the simple, unadorned narrative of a simple man. John Kent, the trainer, who has already made his appearance and his mark in the literature of sport by his biography of Lord George Bentinck, here gives an account of the family whose racing stable he superintends, as did his father before him, and which has been identified with the Goodwood meeting for nearly two hundred years. That meeting may not be so important as it once was—that, at least, is the opinion of many " sporting " specialists—but the best and the most dignified traditions of the turf cling to it, and to the family which has for so long been identified with it. It says much for Mr. Kent's good taste and modesty that he gives but a subordinate position to the meeting, and devotes his attention almost exclusively to the family. It is in many respects a most

interesting, though not at all a sensational, story that be has to tell, for there is nothing whatever of a histoire scandaleuse about it. Mr. Kent gives the record of six English gentlemen who appear to have discharged to the best of their ability the duties of soldiers, landlords, and country gentlemen, and who, though they all bore the title of Duke of Richmond, never forgot the true meaning of noblesse oblige. Mr. Kent writes in the spirit not of lackeydom but of love. His book is, in spirit, a sort of survival of the past,—and of the best of

feudalism. It is none the lees valuable and notable for that reason.

It was the first Duke of Richmond—Mr. Kent does not quote from Gramont or Pepys as to his youthful amatory adventures — who in 1720 purchased the original Good- wood House from the Compton family. At this time the estate was very limited in extent. The original house, an old Gothic structure, was pulled down, and on its site a new building was erected, a portion of which still remains. The second Duke was a much more interesting personality,—a courageous, upright man whom nothing could daunt. Mr. Kent tells an extremely interesting story which proves not only this Duke's courage, but the almost incredible audacity of the smugglers in West Sussex in the middle of the last century. In October, 1747, over forty of them, well mounted, met in Charlton Forest to consult on the possibility of recovering some goods, including tea, which had been seized and deposited in the Custom House at Poole. It was proposed that they should go in a body and break open the Custom House. They carried out their purpose after a fashion which recalls a familiar episode in Guy Mannering. In spite of the fact that a sloop- of-war lay opposite the quay, with its guns pointing to the door of the Custom House, that door was forced open with hatchets, and the smuggled tea carried off. A reward was offered for the apprehension of the smugglers, but it was months before any one was taken. A man of the name of Diamond was ultimately captured and lodged in Chichester Gaol. Shortly afterwards two of the witnesses for the Crown—Custom House officers named Galley and Chater—were on their way to have the latter's evidence taken on oath. They were in- duced to stop at an inn, the landlady of which was in league with the smugglers. She sent for some of them, including a ruffian named Tapner. The rest of this awful story must be told in Mr. Kent's words :—

" The officers were then made nearly drunk and put to bed, from which they were awakened to be tied to one of the horses with their legs under the belly, and were brutally whipped till they fell twice with their heads under the horse. They were then brought to a well in Lady Holt Park, where Galley was taken from the horse and was about to be thrown into the well. This, however, was not done. Putting him again upon the horse, they whipped him to death upon the Downs, and then dug a hole and buried him. Chater they chained in a turf-house from which, being chained in the nose and eyes by a knife, he was taken in the dead of night to Harris's Well, where Tapner fastened a noose round his neck and put him into the well head foremost to stop his groans. They then threw rails, gateposts, and large stones upon him."

The audacity of the smugglers did not end even here. Seven of the smugglers were seized and imprisoned on the charge of

• it,ords and &mini:Irene., of Goodwood and the Dukes of Hie/mond. By John Kent. London: Sampson Low. Marston, and 00.

murdering the two officers. The Dnke of Richmond, who was then Mayor of Chichester, met the Judges who presided at this important trial, and entertained them at Goodwood, before they proceeded to the Bishop's palace to open the special Assizes. Yet a gang of the friends of the murderers contem- plated waylaying the procession at a spot known as Hind Heath, and were only prevented from carrying out their idea by the circulation of a report that the Judges would be guarded by a party on horseback !

This is the moat startling episode in the book and in the history of the Dukes of Richmond. The third Duke, although he held the office of Master of the Ordnance, seems to have devoted himself mainly to the improvement of his estates and to the encouragement of " sport," in the most comprehensive sense of the word. He it was that really laid the foundation of " Glorious Goodwood." The fourth Duke was the gallant soldier and friend of Wellington, whose wife gave the cele- brated ball at Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, and who died in the agonies of hydrophobia in Upper Canada, where he was acting as Lieutenant-Governor. His son, as Earl of March, fought under Wellington, and was so severely wounded at the battle of Orthez that his life was despaired of. He was always, indeed, more or less in danger of death in conse- quence of the bullet he received there shifting its place. He preferred hunting to every other sport. When be was a young man he was a very daring rider, and actually rode down one of the steepest parts of the Bow Hill, a portion

of the South Downs, about four miles from Goodwood, a feat which Mr. Kent says was never attempted before or since. The descent, indeed, was so precipitous, and the feat caused so much astonishment at the time, that the track of the horse was kept open by persons employed on the estate as a great curiosity. He attempted a somewhat similar feat when he returned home after the Peninsular War. But on

this occasion his horse fell with him, and he was for some time in great danger. As a consequence be abandoned hunting and took to the turf. At the same time, and during the forty years in which he bore the genuine honours of his dukedom, he played his part strenuously as a country gentle- man, and even as an essentially Conservative politician according to his lights. He always took a deep interest in the welfare of his old comrades of the Peninsula. He con- sidered they were unfairly treated in not having received such a war-medal as had been given to the men who fought at Waterloo. He fought the red-tape of the Horse Guards, withstood his old friend and commander, the Duke of Wellington, to his face, and ultimately triumphed. He died in 1860 at the age of sixty-nine. Of his successor, the mirth and present Duke of Richmond, and of the part he has played in the political life of the country, it is quite unnecessary to speak.

Mr. Kent's book is something more than a record of the work done by the Dukes of Richmond ; it is also a sort of treasury of the best traditions of the turf. The good stories that are told have nothing " shady " or even vulgar about them. Take, for example, this about the third Duke. "When

the Prince Regent (afterwards George IV.) visited Goodwoed to hunt with the Duke, his Royal Highness was so struck with the working of one of the hounds that in going over the kennels the next day be offered the Duke five hundred guineas for it. His Grace refused. There never was a dog worth five hundred guineas. If your Royal Highness will accept it, it will give me great pleasure.' The Prince felt

himself unable to accept the offer, greatly to the delight of Tom Grant, who related the circumstance to me." The same Duke was greatly averse to cruelty :-

" I have often heard Tom Grant relate how disappointed he had been at peremptory orders to whip off the hounds when, after a long run, the fox was dying before the dogs at the close of the day Such was his Grace's desire to give fair play to a good fox, that once after a capital run, the fox having sought refuge upon the porch of Waltham Church, which was covered with ivy, but not sufficiently to conceal his brush from the view of his pursuers, who, with their whips, were trying to dislodge him, the noble Master rode up in great haste and anger, asking them to desist, and exclaiming, ' Why do you want to murder such a fox ? Leave him alone. He has shown you a good day's sport, and if left will show you another.'"

This is a delightful and wholesome book. It contains materials of the sort that the late Anthony Trollope would have delighted to work up into a novel setting forth modern English aristocratic life at its best.