Satiated with
the pompous follies of this life, of which I have had an uncommon
share, I would have no posthumous ones displayed at my funeral,
and therefore desire to be buried in the next burying-place to
the place where I shall die, and limit the whole expense of my
funeral to L100.'
His body was interred, according to his wish, in the vault of the chapel
in South Audley Street, but it was afterwards removed to the family
burial-place in Shelford Church, Nottinghamshire.
In his will he left legacies to his servants.[26] 'I consider them,' he
said, 'as unfortunate friends; my equals by nature, and my inferiors
only in the difference of our fortunes.' There was something lofty in
the mind that prompted that sentence.
His estates reverted to a distant kinsman, descended from a younger son
of the first earl; and it is remarkable, on looking through the Peerage
of Great Britain, to perceive how often this has been the case in a race
remarkable for the absence of virtue. Interested marriages, vicious
habits, perhaps account for the fact; but retributive justice, though it
be presumptuous to trace its course, is everywhere.
He had so great a horror in his last days of gambling, that in
bequeathing his possessions to his heir, as he expected, and godson,
Philip Stanhope, he inserts this clause:--
'In case my said godson, Philip Stanhope, shall at any time
hereinafter keep, or be concerned in keeping of, any race-horses,
or pack of hounds, or reside one night at Newmarket, that
infamous seminary of iniquity and ill-manners, during the course
of the races there; or shall resort to the said races; or shall
lose, in any one day, at any game or bet whatsoever, the sum of
L500, then, in any the cases aforesaid, it is my express will
that he, my said godson, shall forfeit and pay, out of my estate,
the sum of L5,000 to and for the use of the Dean and Chapter of
Westminster.
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