“It was the late Mr. Buckland who, when on a visit to Lord Fitzwilliam, told me of the impression made upon him by the appearance of a fine handsome gentleman coming up the staircase with a beautiful girl in green velvet on either arm—the member for Pontefract, with two of his daughters. Poor “Sylvanus” thus portrayed Mr. Gully in the very zenith of his career:—‘He had permanent lodgings at Newmarket, well and tastily furnished, and dispensed his hospitality to his friends with no sparing hand. An excellent cook, claret from Griffiths’, with an entertaining gentleman-like host, left little to be desired at the dinner awaiting us. Mr. Gully is justly esteemed, having raised himself from the lowest paths of life to the position, not merely of wealth, but to that of intimacy amongst gentlemen, on or off the turf, but still gentlemen in taste, which nought but the undeviating good manners, and entertaining, unpresuming deportment of Gully could for a moment, or rather for any length of time beyond a moment, suffer them to tolerate. No man ever possessed these qualifications, gained through innate acuteness, great common sense, and a plastic disposition to observe and benefit by the chance _rencontres_ with the courtly patrons of his day to a greater degree, taking the early disadvantages he had to contend with into consideration, than John Gully. No man could be more above pretence, or less shy at any allusions to his early and not very polished career, than himself. When I dined with him at Newmarket, as well as upon subsequent occasions, I was most gratified by his manly openness, and lack of all sensitive false shame, on any occasional appeal being made to the bygone. He, on the contrary, entered freely into many entertaining portions of his history, answered all my questions _con amore_, and with perfect good nature, as to the mode of training, hitting so as not to injure the hand, wrestling, and other minutiæ of the ring; passing the claret and slicing the pine, as if foaled at Knowsley or Bretby. He had a quiet sly way of joking on any turf affair, on which, bear in mind, he was as _au fait_ as Zamiel making a book for the Derby. The turbot came from Billingsgate by express, and the haunch from his own park. Moët purveyed the champagne, Marjoribanks the port, and, as I have before said, Griffiths the Lafitte. We had no skulking host be assured, but the most entertaining and liberal one alive.’ There is a genial tone about this sketch that tells at once for its truth, and it would be difficult to give any man a better character. Gully’s position at every turn and phase of fortune was still a trying one, but no man more fairly earned the respect he gained. There is a very moral of good manners in such a man’s history.”