Only dirt, or wet and dry.
Should the guardian friend or mother
Tell the woes of wilful waste,
Scorn their counsels, scorn their pother,
You can hang, or drown, at last.”
Sir John became one of the Prince of Wales’s cronies, and for a while had the management of his Royal Highness’s racing stable; but while it has been hinted of him, as of George Hanger, that during his tenure of that office he had some share in the transactions that resulted in Sam Chifney, the Prince’s jockey, being warned off the turf, it is but fair to state that there is no evidence in existence to justify the suspicion. Indeed, he seems to have been honest, except in incurring tradesmen’s debts that he could never hope to discharge; but this was a common practice in fashionable circles towards the end of the eighteenth century, and was held to throw no discredit on the man who did so—for was it not a practice sanctioned by the example of “The First Gentleman of Europe” himself?
Sir John’s ambition, apparently, was to imitate a groom in dress and language. It was his pleasure to take the coachman’s place, and drive the Prince’s “German Waggon,”[1] and six bay horses from the Pavilion at Brighton to the Lewes racecourse; and, in keeping with his pose, he was overheard on Egham racecourse to invite a friend to return to dinner in these terms:—“I can give you a trout spotted all over like a coach dog, a fillet of veal as white as alabaster, a ‘pantaloon’ cutlet, and plenty of pancakes as big as coach-wheels—so help me.”
Dr Johnson naturally took an interest in Sir John, and, when Lady Lade consulted him about the training of her son, “Endeavour, madam,” said he, “to procure him knowledge, for really ignorance to a rich man is like fat to a sick sheep, it only serves to call the rooks round him.” It is easier, however, to advocate the acquisition of knowledge than to inculcate it, and knowledge, except of horses, Sir John Lade never obtained in any degree. Indeed, his folly was placed on record by “Anthony Pasquin” in
An Epigrammatic Colloquy,
Occasioned by Sir John Lade’s Ingenious Method of Managing his Estates.
Said Hope to Wit, with eager looks,