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John Flowerdew Colls, who had been Bentham's
amanuensis described a race between Jeremy Bentham (aged 67) and Lady
Romilly:
'In the second season of our residence at this ancient monastery he had
to encounter a somewhat more humiliating defeat, in a trial of corporeal agility,
and in this instance, the most accomplished and beautiful lady (as I thought,
in those days, my eyes had ever seen) had the satisfaction of beating him by
the superior swiftness of her feet. The fair heroine was no other than Lady Romilly,
who, with her amiable daughter and Sir Samuel, who were then on a visit to their
old friend for a few days during the long vacation. Bentham had challenged her
ladyship to run with him to the end of the long gravel-walk in his pleasure grounds;
and, as usual, in the full confidence of his superior strength of body as well
as of mind, vauntingly insisted that he would be the first to reach his goal;
... Her ladyship took the lead at the firstbound, and completely distanced her
pursuer before they had run through half the course, spite of the most strenuous
efforts of her facetious host to get before her, aided and assisted at every
step by his right-hand-man and faithful aid-de-camp 'Dapple', the
appellation given by him to his favourite walking stick. A hearty laugh, as you
may imagine, was one of the consequences of the defeat though, when the vanquished
hero came to a standstill, he was too busy with his pocket-handkerchief to allow
the lookers-on to take particular notice of the effect which her Ladyship's superior
fleetness wrought upon him ...'7
We cannot, of course, be certain which of the paths
in the 'pleasure grounds' was the scene of the race.
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