shave. The Brighton Stakes-really a pretty picking-induced a company of fourteen to bid for the prize. Everybody knows it is a handicap, and on the list of the house at the Corner. For the matter of the symmetry of the finish, it might as well have been an affair of catch-weights, in a game of blind-man's buff. Hesse Homberg came in first, cantering; and the last was a telescopic question. The Town Plate and the Pavilion Plate were respectively won by Lord Exeter and Sir W. Booth. I allude to them, lest the reader should suspect the betting, in either instance, was upon terms with the occasion. I beg he will not so far disparage the enterprise of those who "assisted." In the latter, Edward Sharp, the rider of Thornhill-a boy who knows his business as well as any of his contemporarieswas forced against a post, by which his leg was broken. Apparently in consequence of the spur upon the broken limb coming in unmanageable contact with his side, the horse ran away with the wretched lad-and, in short, it was a sorry sight. The Nursery Stakes was a far more artistic performance in avoirdupoise than its predecessor, the Brighton. Of the two-and-twenty two-year-olds entered, a dozen ran, the odds being as low as 7 to 4 against Prevention. The race was-of its kind-what twenty minutes over grass, with the scent on fire, is to fox-hunting. In the last hundred yards, three of the lots were literally together-inseparable, as it seemed. On the post, Knavery, however, popped her head in first; Miss Emma shot the same length before the favourite. The last plat of the carte was the Hotel-keepers' Plate-by no means a plate of such flavour as they set before you at the Bedford.

Thursday's card was a catalogue, with here and there a good lot. The opening match between Bordeaux (with 9 to 4 in money on him, and 7st. 10lbs. to carry) and The Moor, 8st. 7lb., followed the cash account. A Sweepstakes of 100 sovereigns each, for two-year-olds, was also a match, won with all ease by Rataplan; the other a colt by Cotherstone, out of Lucy Banks-the favourite at a point of the odds. The Brighton Cup, of its seventeen nominations, mustered five runners. They took 6 to 5 against Pan. In this view they were mistaken; for the winner was an Irishman, with the title of Sharavogue. But the field was a low brand. The Marine Platehandicap-had hard upon forty subscribers, and another quintet at the post! To mend the matter, they backed Kilmeny at even ! However, she just managed to lose-and Timid Fawn to win-by a head; and some said that head was on Charlton's shoulders. Did you ever hear of even betters on a handicap being satisfied with a beating? Catharine Hayes having walked over for and with the Biennial, for two-year-olds, the Grand Stand Plate was run for by eleven, of a tidy average. It was a fine trial for the winner-Convulsion-whose star is in the ascendant. The Licensed Victuallers Plate fifteen went for a short scurry-in which Hiett made Grasshopper the best, with a world of gruelling. This ancient vestal, of six full years, carried six stone and a-half-about a stone less than some of the three-year-olds. The Sussex Plate, with a mortal field of fifteen, Flounce carried off; and up went the sponge... Friday was. the Club day-as the distinction implies, an amateur anniversary. With a slight sprinkle of contretemps, it was a favourable specimen

of the anti-professional. Gentlemen don't, as the rule, ride as well over the course as jockeys: but won't you allow something for the getting up? Take the amateur jock: his silk attire would do credit -perhaps it actually does-to Messrs. Howell and James. Hunt shall breech, and O'Hara shall boot him......and

Though to his hand and seat some errors fall,

Look at his 'togs,' and you forgive them all.

During the week occurred Crigglestone Races, of which I profess to know nothing, not even the geographical position; also-as relates to occurrence-the North Staffordshire Races. So did Ripon Meeting-inaugurated by a multitude of Tykes, with heats and other elements of chivalric attraction. To these were added Blackley Races, of which I am incompetent to say more, not having Brookes" at hand Spalding Races, too, are on at this time, and so are Edgeware, and Chewton Mendip, and East Dereham, and-but with your leave, we'll take a gentle pall to replenish our lungs.

at the moment.

What manner of Olympic epitome may serve to dispose of the sports in the second week of the past month? If Wolverhampton claim place, there are nigh upon a score of events to be discussed. The Stakes-handicap, of course-was the most prominent and popular of the issues, but as they laid odds on one, it is scarcely necessary to premise that the field was especially select; there were, in fact, 33 nominations, and four of them at the post. Weathergage, with 6st. 5lbs. on him" including 7lbs. extra"-was naturally enough the favourite, a point on him against the trio, and with all he could do, he just pulled through. As postscript, it must be observed that the weather, and other et cætera, were bad-very bad. Then there was the Reading tryst, with rain, and storm, and all manner of mischances. "But for these unlucky circumstances, and the unfortunate state of the weather," said the newspaper accounts of the meeting, "everything would have gone off well"-as John Kemble remarked to an aspirant for histrionic honours-or I believe it was Garrick, but that don't affect the fact-"You would make a good actor, sir, only you roar like a bull, you're as obstinate as a mule, and as stiff as a poker.".....The accountable Pug Orrock won the Reading Stakes, for two year olds, beating Vaultress, with 7 to 4 against her, and three others. But with mud as deep as the Slough of Despond, what lines are worth a groat? Coventry had its contrarinesses too; moreover, there it rained remorselessly. Great Yarmouth put forth a programme of eight events, whereof five were heats. Tunbridge followed suit with three races, which by a judicious infusion of heats became eight. Hazel Grove was a prepense case of leather plate. Lynn races laboured under the disadvantage of a short supply of horses-and rain without stay or stint. At Musselburgh, again, the screw was at work, heating up trifles for a relish; and Kinniel essayed to throw in for patronage by the exhibiting of hurdles. With such short-comings, it is not to be gainsaid that York was wanted.

York August Meeting in the present year exceeded in appliances and means all others of that ilk. It was put on the scene by the intervention of every ingenuity of locomotion, from the "Express" to the

"Cheap excursion" train-inclusive. Railway companies combined in rivalry to achieve its eclât with the Electric Telegraph Company; and the result of the latter was that the issues of the various races were known in London sooner than on Knavesmire. As the wires were also "reticulated and decussated," as Dr. Samuel Johnson lucidly expresses it, all over the country, it will be inferred that the preface to the meeting was to the purpose. What a thing

"To make Heaven weep, all earth amazed,"

were a picture by a competent pencil, if mortal hand might wield such, of The Dance of Life in 1852! Assuming that supping on raw pork is a specific for the horrors, let the artist prepare for his essay by swallowing a forest of wild boars. His subjects encumber him with their prodigality, supposing his taste to have been formed after Canaletti and Michael Angelo. Behold him at noon upon 66 the pleasant waters of"-the Solent Sea. What galleys of gorgeous grace float round and about him! What music makes melody for his ear; what pomp and circumstance of wealth and estate entrances his spirit.....

This world they say's a world of woe,

But that I do deny :

Can sorrow from the goblet flow,

Or care from beauty's eye?

The Queen" the fair-haired daughter of the isles"-crowns this scene of surpassing glory, before which Apollo (it is a bright autumnal day, with sunshine) "hides his diminished head," with her gracious presence. But he does not wait for the feasting that sublimes the pageant.......

It is night. Observe at the front of the spot at which he has paused a rude barrier, within whose arch are gates begrimed with time and rust. It marks the line between the mighty cities of London and Westminster-cynosures of the whole earth's refined culmination -temples of humanity's noblest deeds and records. His foot is on the threshold of Temple Bar. He passeth it not. While yet his local habitation is "the City," turning abruptly to the right hand he enters an avenue commonly called Shire Lane. Now, supper of sanglier, do thy work! He shapes his course north-westward. His point is towards "Great St. Giles's"...... Let us be grateful that the crayon is a mute interpreter-that, while it appeals to "Heaven's high chancery," its eloquence is spared the penalty of a blush. "Look on this picture"-off the Motherbank-"and on this"-inside the Seven Dials. Your ear, happily, is spared that which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive, save when leavened with the lava of demoniacal despair-with the unforgiven sin that defies hope, and the mortal contamination for which there is no name. Aye, indeed, these are terrible words; yet do they but faintly typify the things to which they relate :

"Quæque ipse miserrima vidi."

Haply you know not that within a distance, to be calculated by the rood, of the palaces of our monarchs, our princes, our prelates, and our arch-prelates, dwell thousands upon thousands of human beings, whose lives are sacriligeous outrages against the Deity, and

open scandal to the form shaped after his image-that in London may be witnessed sights and scenes which never shamed the annals of the savage, or polluted the face of the wilderness. But even so it

is: and the modern practical moralist is silent-at least as to overt denunciation-and passes it without rebuke. He does not summon notice to the crying evil of the conventional imprecations, the systematic filthinesses of speech" familiar to our-streets-as household words." He does not proclaim-for general indignation-that our wives, our sisters, and our children, may not venture abroad without being compelled to hear that from which delicacy recoils and nature revolts. Are the social conditions of million-life had in logical account by the transcendentalists of the fashionable philosophy, whose hobby just now is oligarchic optimism? Is the hour arrived and the man ripe-that, though he is asking for bread, we give him a stone, and promote missions to provide Spitalfields with Grecian statuary? In the core and penetralia of this metropolis communities are conglomerated, and masses of the human animal mingled like cattled in the fold; mother lies with son-long years emancipated from his teens-and fathers share the beds of marriageable daughters. Dorchester labourer-Bethnal Green weaver has sixteen children, and a possible income of seven shillings a week! The Duchess of Bloomsbury's dress footman has pink-silk stockings, and a bouquet as big as a birch-broom in his button hole. The cabman "gets a month's Bridewell who takes a liberty with an extra fourpenny piece; and Mr. Moore, the Times tells us, takes ten thousand a year, and does nothing for it. We read of thimble-and-pea men being drawn through horse-ponds on suspicion of sheer practice in matters of "bobs and "benders," and of gentlemen receiving the congratulations of the Court who have failed for fifty or five hundred thousand pounds. Canalletti at Cowes: Michael Angelo in the back slums. "It's good to be merry and wise" apropos of the Tyke.

This latter sentence is

It is Wednesday, August 18th, and all the world and his mother make the best of their way to York. As usual, the anniversary had exhausted the resources of toutery, tippery, list policy, and gobe moucherie. The ring-active and passive-was there, horses by the hundred, and victims as many as you please. Well, after all, it is a right pleasant tryst; full of turf memories pregnant with interest, and rarely without its especial episode to stir phlegmatic constitutions. The dilemma is how to treat it. My own bias is not for racing as a business. I cannot feel that the object and consequence of our great national sport has become concentrated in the odds-their fluctuations and what's come of the betting. Neither am I alone in my view; but it is not the less true that every hour the popular character of the pastime is shown by its holiday antecedents.....The auxiliaries were ample and excellent; plenty of matter, and good machinery to work it. This will be developed as we review the principal points brought out by the occasion. The first day had a list with seven events for discussion. The Dundas Stakes (handicap) was the first. A moderate field of five mustered for it, and The Reaper won. The Chesterfield, another handicap, followed-seven runners of small account; Paddybird picked this up without much to

do. And then excitement was on tip-toe to see how Daniel O'Rourke, with 5 to 2 on him, would walk off with the Ebor St. Leger. Premising that it was run a match between the winner of the Derby and Mr. Greville's Frantic, and that the latter cantered home lengths before the favourite, I beg to lay before the gentle reader reports of the encounter furnished by two of the sporting newspapers. "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?"

"They walked for a short distance, and afterwards cantered to the mile-post, when Butler, having orders to wait, stopped bis horse (Daniel O'Rourke); and Flatman (Frantic's jockey) taking advantage thereof, rushed to the front, took a commanding lead, maintained it to the end, and won in a canter by three lengths."

Second edition

"Then came the Ebor St. Leger, which at first promised three or four runners, but which subsequently was reduced to a match between the Derby winner and Frantic. The appearance of the pair as they went down was eagerly canvassed; and as far as condition went, public opinion was decidedly in favour of Frantic, as the little Daniel O'Rourke looked lusty, and did not appear to go with that elasticity of action for which he is so remarkable, and which gained him so many friends on the Derby day. Two, and in many instances three to one, were freely laid upon Daniel, who made running at a strong pace, so much so that many imagined he had run away, and that Butler could not hold him."....

I waive allusion to the discourteous and discreditable deductions, and odious comparisons, stated to have been current, consequently, which went back to unpleasant precedents with Newminster for their climax. . . Without reference of any kind to the present instance as a case in point, it certainly is out of season in this epoch of Olympian grace to insist upon the worst application of discrepancies in a race-horse's running. There is experience enough in general use to ensure no ignorance as to the uncertainties of form in all animals trained beyond their ordinary physical properties. Like fiddle-strings, however choice the care taken of them and their tested qualities, they will give way when you are coaxing them up to concert pitch. Suppose O'Rourke wins at Doncaster in a canter, would it be fair or feasible to attribute peccadillo prepense to his having lost at York? The turf hath bubbles; it also has safe substantial facts, many of them left undisputed, beyond the special pleading of no Jockey Club legislation appertaining to them, that call for harder names and dealing than the Frantic affair aforesaid. The Yorkshire Oaks, out of 63 nominations, found but half a dozen fitor "fettled," as they call it down in the black north-to fight it out, and one of these had the call of the lot at even, that one Mr. Greville's Adine. And very well she did it at the price, waiting with the issue in hand to the distance, where she demonstrated, and won with cleverness (Flatman was "up"), if not with ease. The Convivial-a fine new two-year-old race-with 117 subscribers, brought out, as a gentleman with a slight Celtic accent observed, "a broth of a batch of babies." Fifteen went, and they took 7 to 2 about one, his Grace of Bedford's Sittingbourne-in next year's Derby and Leger. Who shall essay to reveal the fate of the Derby myth for the year 1853? Saving their favour, somehow the fields in these parts are not so orderly and discreet as in the more sedate south. For this reason, and because it is out of my power to do otherwise, the details of this