his Lordship became "Lord Paramount of the Turf." It is forty-four
years since Lord GEORGE was found lying dead on his face in the
water-meadows near Welbeck Abbey. Yet KENT remembers all about
him--his six feet of height, his long black frock-coat, his velvet
waistcoat, his gold chain, and his "costly cream-coloured satin scarf
of great length, knotted under his chin, with a gold pin stuck in
it." These scarves cost twenty shillings a-piece, and it was one of
Lord GEORGE's fancies never to wear one a second time. When he died
whole drawersful of them were found, and honest JOHN KENT purchased
half-a-dozen from his Lordship's valet, who seems to have kept his
eye on them. Did he ever wear them on Sundays? My Baronite who has
been reading the book trows not. JOHN KENT knows his place better
than that, and when he goes the way that masters and servants tread
together, the scarves will doubtless be found tucked away in _his_
chest of drawers. My Baronite is not able to take the same lofty view
of the defunct nobleman who played at politics and worked at racing as
does his faithful old servitor. Lord GEORGE seems to have been, as the
cabman observed of the late JOHN FORSTER, "a harbitery gent," kind to
those who faithfully serve him (as one is kind to a useful hound),
but relentless to any who offended him or crossed his path. Moreover,
whilst, as his biographer devoutly says, he purified the turf, he was
not, upon occasion, above fighting blacklegs with their own weapons.
The book gives clear glimpses of men and times which, less than half
a century dead, will never live again. It pleasantly testifies that,
though no man may be a hero to his valet, Lord GEORGE BENTINCK remains
one in the eyes of his trainer.

The Baron not having read a three-volume novel for some considerable
time, may safely affirm, instead of taking his oath, that Mrs.
OLIPHANT's _The Cuckoo in the Nest_ is one of the best he has come