" Old Q." By John Robert Robinson. (Sampson Low, Marston,
and Co.)—Mr. Robinson has told the story of a disreputable nobleman whom it would have been better to forget. He exer- cises, it is true, a commendable discretion in dealing with some of the worst things in the Duke of Queensberry's career. Most of the volume is devoted to "Old Q.'s " doings as one of the "Fathers of the Turf." We do not profess to adjudge praise in due proportion to the followers of this pursuit. As far as the turf is concerned he does not seem to have been more unprincipled than his followers. His were strange times, and he was not before them. What should we think now of two ladies claiming the privileges of Peeresses for keeping a common gaming-house ? Ingenuity Mr. Robinson's hero certainly had. He wagered, for instance, that he would cause a letter to be conveyed fifty
miles in an hour. This he accomplished by inclosing it in a cricket-ball and stationing twenty cricketers, expert in catching, at regular distances, who threw the ball from one to another. The ball had to traverse same twenty-five yards every second. This is what Mr. Robinson calls, " another attempt to lower the colours of the synchronising deity," other- wise a" contest with man's greatest enemy." The Duke is credited with one good action, giving £2,000 to the Patriotic Fund. As he had a balance of £100,000 at his bankers, this was not very noble. Could not Mr. Robinson find some respectable person to write about ?
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