the tops of the ladies' silk stockings-"quæque ipse miserrima vidi" —and begat horrid imprecations upon the impatience which induced the ruder sex to charge any opening or weak arrangement of the rank of receding equipages, to avoid the probability of being washed out of their buggies, or off their saddles-" et quorum pars-fui." The Cup day absorbed a very large moiety of the interest of the gala, and whole oceans of wine and spirits for transmutation into negus and grog, au naturel. Daniel O'Rourke, having escaped the mischief which might have attended the mishap to his carriage on his way to the course, won the St. James's Palace Stakes "swimmingly." So did Songstress, as aforesaid, by the Triennial ditto; and Joe Miller carried off the Emperor's Plate from a field, beaten, besmudged, and " flummoxed" beyond all terms of the descriptive. Friday was reported to have been the best of the four afternoons. Probably; but, as prevention is better than cure, I passed it in-my dressing-gown and the society of a French novel, some undeniable "Rigondas' -a family from the Havanah that I beg to suggest to the reader's acquaintance--and some very agreeable soda and Chablis. The genus of Sir Boyle Roche's bird being extinct, those who were at Ascot were not at Beverley. Respecting Hampton, I got as far as the foot of Richmond-bridge on my way to Moulsey Hurst, and at that point was laid forcible hands on, and carried up to the Star and Garter. Being of a plastic temperament, I submitted myself to the violence without a murmur.

Placed as it were by Providence, for a race-course of the middle of the nineteenth century, midway between the port of Liverpool and the townor city-of Manchester, why Newton has gone down the hill of popularity seems hard to surmise. But so is the fact. The term was three days, and the stakes filled-full, some of them; but voilà tout! By "coaly Tyne" they ran the Northumberland Plate-q. e. d.--the "peoples" there did congregate. This handicap did Stilton win, adding another crumb of comfort to his "party's" parings. Anon they hied them to the Hampshire Downs, these men of ubiquitous industries, and at Danebury-that is to say, at Bibury-and eke at Stockbridge, did come out strong! Here we had a strong relish of the ups and downs already adverted to. For a Triennial, at that latter place, Kingston beat Joe Miller-so, unless mud-larking be Joe's especial element, Lord Ribblesdale's horse that was, must have trained on from the previous month. The two-year-old running was not a "stunner," as it has turned out on antecedent anniversaries...this year's average of the stock generally we will state in the sequel.

Passing by Carlisle, Chelmsford, and Salisbury, we arrive once again on the pleasant plain intersected by the Devil's Dyke. It is Newmarket, with its three days of July. Here, for the first time, I canvassed the plan of the experimental trial course, and gave my notions of its practical working, as follows: "It will be somewhat over threequarters of a mile in length, and will shut out the espionage of the genus tout' about as efficiently as a boiled carrot might serve to bolt the door of Newgate." I believe I am not solitary in my deductions at this instant. From set "teeth chattering," the thermometer was now above grilling point. Reiver won the July by a dozen lengths, in an amble. For the Town Plate we learnt how the conditions of the Lancashire Oaks became a "Plot"-for starting for a race with the inten

tion of losing it-elsewhere. Such is turf-policy: perhaps the Royal Plates might be worked profitably upon such a system. They do more harm than good as they are. Worcester, in the year 1852, was looking up; and Liverpool summer tryst was looking the other way. I don't wonder at that latter result-but, I admit, upon false premises. My own impression has always been that Aintree was the least attractive course in Great Britain: it has no feature of a rural or holiday or sporting character connected with it. The ground and locality are the reverse of picturesque; and for the rest, there's a railway, and a range of stabling, and a great long building, which is called the Grand Stand. The first item of the lot is certainly the best, because the site is a journey from the town. But then the townsfolk and travellers can't get at the terminus-for the start-seeing that the Lancashire rabble is the ruffianest, probably, on the face of the earth: the Golden Diggings company, of course, excepted. The race for the Cup produced a field of four-and a row. This was all about Poodle; but things being presently made pleasant," they "pooh-poohed" the shindy, and Colsterdale" went and won.' Plot didn't perfect the Oaks "dodge," after all, Butterfly" doing the trick" by a neck. Worcester-as our notice detailed in due season-had it's "flare-up ;" but sheer practice is the prevailing philosophy of life. Progress is everywhere at work--even in Mr. Calcraft's profession-I mean Mr. C., the practical operator of Newgate. In Lombardy, we read in the newspapers' especial correspondence, that Austria, for the better observance of Popery, and the proper penalty of Protestantism, is at these presents hanging all recusants from the theory of transubstantiation and the seven sacraments, by means of halters of an entirely novel construction, and so contrived that they prolong the process of strangulation for the extremest possible time, and thus extract the greatest available amount of agony from the subject operated on!...

"Usque quo Domine!"

Provincial passages in Olympics fill up the interval which separates us from Goodwood. These, with your leave, we will skip over, after the fashion of the king in backgammon......Back gammon ! "Revocare gradum"-what imp of Parnassus suggested such a game?

"What business has here, at such a time?"

This is pastoral Sussex-Anno Minis. Derb.-Sussex of the cereal Bramber......

(“' Antonia! where's my pocket-handkerchief?''')

Well, let bygones be bygones: he closed his political existence fighting for a farthing a pot off your beer. But woe is me" when sorrows come, they come not single spies." The democratic deluge is Weathergage has won the Goodwood Stakes and Kingston the Cup, which he followed up by walking over for a £175 "compro

upon us!

mise." Commenting upon these items of success, a friend observed, as we wended our descent from the Downs

"Unlucky brute, that Kingston, that he didn't stand his Derby preparations."

"Yes," said I, suggestively, "but he's been doing very well since, in the main ?"

Brighton-whither the exhausted "Ring" was wont to " repair" after its four days' labour in the land of the Lennox-in the past year of grace commenced a regular business career. Winding up with an amateur"bit" at the fag end was quite in keeping with the design-with the character it has now assumed. One would have thought such a pleasure resort might have supported a meeting where amusement should be, at least, the ostensible lure-but I suppose the idea has become Utopian as relates to modern racing. They must, however, mend the materiel of horse flesh, or the speculation will not flourish.

About this time warning was given of the weather which sluiced the remainder of the season as never autumn in the British Isles was saturated before. We can afford, however, to lie by until York August Meeting calls us again abroad. Much legerdemain has, of course, been on foot the while-but hocus pocus is a parcel of horse-racing, as by turf precept and example established, so we may pass that too. Knavesmire here occurs naturally. It is crowded. Daniel O'Rourke, with odds on him, is beaten for the Ebor St. Leger by Frantic-and many lengths in a canter, and folks said everything but what they ought about it. A horse is supposed never to fluctuate in his form-by his backers. Adine having won the Yorkshire Oaks, with about three stone less to carry, did the same, as you may imagine, by the Great Ebor Handicap. It was said this was accomplished on sufferance of one of her own year.....My notion is that it was Weathergage was on sufferance from the Clothworker dose. Here we had a taste of Stockwell's natural form: he had won great stakes in the spring, ditto in the summer, and now again in the fall. This was ominous, for a horse must be intrinsically good that runs on well, malgré a chance throw out. About this time there were meetings all over the country. What became of the Derby Ministry's anti-List-houses Bill? Among other items monstrari digito we have Weathergage winning twice at Derby -the borough so called-one of his triumphs being a £50 Plate. At Egham the Greeks' had a fly at one another--the "Pigeons" they distribute amicably. At Leamington-for the Stakes of that ilk-we have Lady Evelyn a winner, demonstrating that golden rule for all racing neophytes-that when once a turf horse has proved that the principle of the course is in its thews and machinery, it must as the rule do so again, unless the conditions of form-as wind and soundness of limb-have passed away.

Doncaster rarely, if ever, lacks an especial instance of gobemoucherie. So orderly, too, is it conceived and put upon the scene, that it is scarce too bold an imagination to suppose that long previous to the performance, the great Wizards of the North -the South-the West-and elsewhere-meet together and arrange the plot. As a passage of LEGERdemain it is perfect. How artistically the acts are arranged, and how pathetically the catastrophe is developed! How intense becomes the interest......" they are

off"......the "pot" is landed-" and up goes the donkey." The feature of the first day is the crack two-year-old event of the four; and Vindex being fortunate in finding a starter who took him while he was in the humour, won the Champagne. The Great Yorkshire Handicap was a specimen of the art of bringing horses together. When Hungerford, the winner, pass'd the post, some of his followers were having a race among themselves at the Red House! It is the 15th of Septemberand The St. Leger, with 116 subscribers, £25 each, and all the money to pay whether you start or stop in the stable-induced half a dozen to

come out.

Mrs. Beecher Stowe ought to do a melodrama, with one Jack Sellinger for principal villain, and have the character underlined to Mr. O. Smith. In it she might show how the hero, strolling one afternoon in Kensington Gardens, meets with a stranger, who introduces himself as a Mr. Ahasuerus, just arrived from his cave on Mount Carmel, and how they agree to a co-partnery as confederates on the turf. Thereupon Jack Sellenger sets up a filly by the name of St. Cecilia, and The Wandering Jew (of course you know his name is Ahasuerus?) a colt, which he names Patrick's-Day-in-the-Morning. Well, they put their animals into the St. Leger-for says Jack to the Jew, "You see it's at Doncaster the plant must come off, for I'm Tyke myself, and Tykes swear by one another; and as they are all friends, old fellow, I can slip into them slick,' as the bowie-knife said to the bread-basket.' So to work they go, and Jack undertakes, if he don't win, to eat the Corporation of Doncaster and wash them down with the Bay of Biscay; and Ahasuerus causes it to be intimated that he has already filled up a stamp-receipt for the stakes, and forwarded it to the Messrs. Weatherby, in order to save time and trouble. It is not, of course, for me to instruct the brilliant authoress how she is to wind up; but it would not be amiss if the curtain fell upon the chief rascal discovered at Mivart's, at breakfast with his friend, who, as the "drop" descends takes his departure amid blue fire and a strong odour of brimstone, to arrange something about the Cesarewitch.......

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be

A sporting journalist thus touches upon the vexed question of the issue referred to in the last paragraph but one : "We reach Doncaster to find all Yorkshire on tiptoe to witness the great gun of the north carry off the St. Leger"-(the metaphor is obscure, but perhaps there may more meant than meets the mind's eye). Opinion in that quarter was divided as to what was the real Simon Pure of the stable; one party adhering to Daniel, but the friends' sticking to the mare. The dé nouement, however, will not easily be forgotten, though these things are usually but nine-day wonders, the old sore to be cicatrised when another good thing is upon the tapis."

The facts are these: Stockwell, having previously won the Two Thousand Guineas Stakes at Newmarket, the Nowmarket ditto at ditto, the Racing Stakes at Goodwood, and the Great Yorkshire Stakes at York, beat a miserable quintet for the St. Leger, in a canter. Having regard to antecedents, this was no miracle. But-for it's better to speak the truth than to suggest it-it was charged against John Scott, the trainer and owner of Songstress, that he had deceived his best friends by the assurance that she was as certain of the Leger as of the Oaks-having already won the latter. I know nothing of this of my own knowledge,

but this I know from experience, and which has cost me sore-that of all the ungracious calls made upon friendship is that which requires you to give the applicant your opinion of a favourite in your own stable ; that, too, a favourite with the public, for such a race as the Leger. So long as the turf is what it is understood to be, that as which it is treated by racing men of all conditions, a keen encounter of wit-" to wit," in pounds, shillings, and pence--so long will people look to themselves; as the Jerusalem pony is said to have done when he polk'd among the chickens. I see little difference between it and asking him for a loan or a donation of money at once; save that, if your animal wins, no thanks to you for it; and if he loses, you put your "friend" "in the hole !"

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I crave pardon for a word upon what Lord Byron says all men are eloquent about, and few agreeable-SELF. Circumstances compelled me to leave Doncaster on Thursday morning, and, “ nescio quid meditans," in looking up materials for the notice of the meeting, which appeared in the October number of this work, by some obfuscation I made Kingston the winner of the Cup, in lieu of Teddington. It was an error for which I cannot offer any excuse, except an apology......

Tues

In the First October week we were launched into the "deluge" which made England for the remainder of the year more fit for amphibii than this "too solid flesh" called human. In some sort, the points of interest in that meeting have already been alluded to in this reminiscence. The Second October once more exhibited Weathergage as a winner, the Cesarewitch falling before him, as also a community of list-levanters. The Houghton was sadly characteristic of its mission-"the evaporation of a joyous day." The Criterion, won by Speed-the-Plough, was "no criterion at all;" inasmuch as West Australian, second to him on Monday, beat him in a canter on Thursday for the Glasgow Stakes. day's handicap-the ultimate of the leviathans-the Cambridgeshire, was won, it may be needless to say, by Knight of the Shire, except to observe that it is not safe to draw lines from races run with the jockeys' boots full of water. Wednesday was productive of a scena whose moral was thus written subsequently: The stewards of the Jockey Club have decided that Mr. J. Hughes shall not be permitted to run any horses at Newmarket, nor to come upon the Heath" in future. I quote from memory, but that is the substance of a notice lately appended to the usual return of the betting at Tattersall's in the daily papers......... And thus we bid adieu to a season whose shadows the Olympic seer might thus scan......Its predominant principle was mediocrity: such was the quality of its patronage, such the characteristic of the stock which constitutes the staple of the racing year's interest-the three and two-yearolds. The Robinsons, the Chifneys, the Scotts are gone, and shall we look upon their like again? The answer is yet hypothesis. We will hope for the best, and strive for the best; above all, should we study for the best. It may be well to trust to "fair occasion"-to adopt for a motto, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"

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"Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere,

Edita doctrinâ sapientum templa serena."