scrambleous scurry are altogether omitted-Sittingbourne (whose sire was my equsory aversion) first giving one "the slip," then another "the go-bye," and, ultimately, the whole of them the coup de grace, won by a short length. The second was yclept Nicotine-a term, I believe of the pharmacopœia—

"The pleasure we delight in physicks pain."

Her Majesty's Plate had six bold Britons to the fore, albeit they laid intolerable odds on Kingston-anything you'd take, in fact, and much obliged to you. He won as he would, the whole

"In linked slowness long drawn out."

Is truth a libel ?....Then what's lying? There's a skirting hound that babbles over this scent-give him a taste of your thong, jolly, honest ghost of Jack Stevens. The Selling Stakes were won by Needle-sharp practice to the keen. Being entered to be sold for £30, she (Needle) was allowed 22lbs.-that was a sop for she. Well! she sold for 190 gs.-that was a sop for they. "Caw me, caw thee!" It's very odd-or suppose we say strange I shall have a letter addressed to the publishers' by some grammarian of the list school, calling their attention to the fact that "odds" have no singular number. As I was saying, it's very strange that among the inducements announced in the newspaper perorations for the York and Doncaster revels, mention is never made of the supply of grouse common to such occasions. Did Apicius ever taste that inconceivable bird? Did imperial Cæsar die and turn to clay in ignorance of that lusciousest of feathered songsters? uninitiated into the flavour of that immortal moor-fowl? Place such a possibility side by side with the assertion, that about the month of August we are in the custom of introducing it into our breakfast, dinner, and supper carte,-Lucullus was a fellow with a swallow that never soared beyond the savour of a Welsh rabbit!

Thursday set in with unmitigated popular severity. How they got there-notwithstanding the railways, like carpet-bags after they are full, have always room for more-is easier imagined than described, "Fine old English gentlemen" came, to the melody of "five figures"-striking the average low-and as for the tag-rag and bobtail, they beggared description. But, besides this "getting upstairs" into the stands-great and small-there were features moral and social and philosophical, of grave account-for such as noted them. There was the prodigal son, who in 1851 skinned the lieges and realized the Californian that mining prospectuses have sung-left without so much pewter as would make stakes. There was never mind the person-singular (the phase illustrative of reverse of fortune symbols the conditions-by" out-of-the-elbows.")...Behold-look, in your mind's eye, upon a man whose toilette course once included a champagne shower-bath, whose dinners were compounded of all that was not in season-who lived lately in a northern English county, as Sardanapalus does in Lord Byron's poem-taking the air, with his toes out of his shoes, on Knavesmire !..." The pleasure we delight in physics pain."... "A thousand pounds," soliloquizes the man in the old play-" a thousand pounds-pooh pooh! there never existed a treasure of the kind: it's a fabulous sum." What would that eminent philosopher

66

of old, Trigonwell Frampton, have said to stakes counting their nominations by hundreds? How he must wail and gnash his teeth in Purgatory, if he gets a peep, now and then, of the Sheet Calendar! For instance, a dainty dish to lay before his perturbed spirit were— -The Great Ebor Handicap of 20 sovereigns each; ninety subscribers! And of these, eighteen to run, with 7 to 4 taken that Adine won-outright. If you will be gracious enough to understand that two-thirds of this party were backed, you will imagine the row that received the start. I believe a specification of the race has been put into print; but, extending your courtesy to a recollection of the two versions of the Ebor St. Leger, you will not demand a refaciamento of the refrain. The favourite won, and as Adine, carrying 8st. 7lbs., won the Yorkshire Oaks, I really cannot at the moment suggest an excuse for the same fate awaiting the Great Ebor Handicap at her heels, seeing that the burden she bore was-5st. 9lbs., or hard upon three stone less......I wish-(" Trim! Trim! I wish I was asleep!")—that Weathergage had not been beaten" for this-failure. Has it ever occurred to anyone that the true moral of "The Goose with the Golden Eggs" is not the conventional interpretation of the fable?.... The Prince of Wales's Stakes-another crack two-year-old Sweepstakeshad 31 nominations, and even out of these dark juvenilities they actually indicated the best whose price was 6 to 5! Six to five The Queen" does devoir for the Prince of Wales-his stake. It was nuggets-for the picking up. The Eglinton Stakes, 31 subscribers, paraded only seven. What between the basting the book division had been undergoing, and the obvious leakage of the stables, one might have looked for matches in such cases. For this ultimately-they backed Exact at even! Have the touts really inaugurated the balloon dodge, of which I wrote, anticipatorily, some brief time since? Exact did as divined; she carried off the Eglinton Sweeps.....The Colt Sapling is one of the good old sort, a dainty little two years of age touch, £50 each, £30 ft.; the entries were eleven, and the turn-outs half-a-dozen. The first in the ring-throng was Vindex-5 to 4 against. Shall the spell dissolve at last?

"Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus"

The crack bowled them over in a canter by two lengths. The County Plate, 100 sovs. bonus, and 15 a-piece for stakes-five for a field; betting, 6 to 5 against Vaultress, and Lambton wins! Great is the goddess of the Ephesians!" The little fishers of men look up their best flies their most killing tackle. The Lottery Plate-date obolum Belisario-fell to the fortune of the Lady in Waiting. The odds were miscellaneous and mischiefless. The Bramham Park Stakes Freestone was permitted to walk off with, and so the play was played out. But the bill included an “entertainment," or farce, which must have a brief notice...... The Lottery Plate of 25 sovs., with its eight subscriptions of £5 each, would produce to the winner, in round figures, some £60. Now the animal wherewith the victory was achieved was entered-looking to the allowance consequent upon the price, viz., 20lbs.—to be sold for £30. She was bought in at £141 15s. Laying, then, the expenses of starting her at £15-a sufficiently moderate estimate the winner was just £96 15s. out of pocket by the venture. Friday, brimfull of business, opened with the Queen's Plate for

mares.

The favourite was Hesse Homberg; the winner Bird-on-theWing. Are such things as these worth a hundred guineas a-piece, cheap as gold is? The Consolation Scramble gathered a lot of thirteen to the dozen. With children on their backs, race-horses over courses of five furlongs are dangerous playthings. Fortunately this essay with such small deer came off without any fatality, but not scathlessly. Senorita was backed at 3 to 1, but, after "various cases," Polly arrived first. This put the great race of the meeting before the audience. The Great Yorkshire Stakes for three-year-olds is run at the conventional racing weights of our day. The stake commanded an entry of 165, and twelve runners. This will not be any cause of surprise, as one of them showed with 5 to 4 on him. Lord Exeter had two in, and declared to win with Ilex; the odds against him being 8 to 1, such an election was natural enough. Stockwell was the other, backed to beat the eleven at a point of the odds on him; the distance is the same as that for the Doncaster St. Leger; the favourite won-cleverly by a length-so said the returns of the race; Longbow was next him— a thick-winded horse, running under heavy atmospheric discouragement. Be deductions what they may, or rather what they will—as of course everybody suits his translation to his book-it was by no means a performance of a high class. Still, such as this has nothing on earth-that is to say on the turf-to do with data or deductions. Without prejudice to the honour of the most transcendental chivalry, it may be announced that the place of a race-horse in a public race is no criterion of his quality. A member of the Jockey Club starts his horse avowedly to lose it is the practice or the privilege of the proprietor to do so. As the Duke of Newcastle is asserted to have proclaimed-as Mr. Moore, the eminent divinity sinecurist did some three or four days ago advertise in the columns of The Times-mankind have a right (divine?) to do what they please with their own...... Sydney Smith pointed to the universality of this principle when, on parting with a friend about to sail for New Zealand, he pressed his hand and ejaculated, "Well, goodbye! I hope the first missionary you eat won't disagree with your stomach!” The Gimcrack Stakes-having induced a contest between eight, 5 to 2 on Exact-was duly won by the favourite, in a canter, by any amount of lead. She has been since sold, it is understood, for £1,200, or rather more than 1200 per cent. upon her cost price. The York Cup-worth altogether a couple of hundreds-fell to the reward of Lady-in-Waiting. Perhaps the "to be sold for £50" already spoken of included the backers as well as the beast. The Filly Sapling Stakes, albeit thirteen were named, did not bring forth more than a trio: won by Comfit. Locket having secured the Tyro Stakes; Burndale the Members' Plate; and an amateur match being run off, the most palmy anniversary of York August Races within memory reached the mortal goal--Finis......

Plymouth, Devonport and Cornwall Races, Lichfield Races, ditto Pinner, &c., which were discussed during the same week, can only receive this passing allusion. Political economists are sorely puzzled as to the probable or possible issue of the Irish exodus; financiers fail in their offorts to foretell what shall ultimately arise from the discovery of a country whose dust is actually gold, as anticipated by the well-known popular metaphor; but by incalculable odds greater and more incapable of solution is the myth of modern racing. I" give it up," as a whole,

where the money comes from, where it goes to, whither the mysterious mania tends. That it wont presently come out-with the explosion of a universe of Etnas-remains to be seen-and felt.

The first week of August lays claim to half a score of meetings, metropolitan and provincial. Egham, on these and other grounds, is entitled to precedence. Runnymede has had a long run against it; but like all similar stock, it quotes much better than it was wont. Still it by no means averages with classic Moulsey Hurst. Woe is me to read such comparisons as these in conjunction with King John, all the British Barony, and Magna Charta to boot....... "On the first day the weather was dull and showery, and the attendance-small and unfashionable. The Ring, as at York, was very limited ("on horror's head horrors accumulate"), "and the proportion of layers to backers was about twenty to one" (one draws breath in awe!) "it was a decided case of 'dog eat dog.' The Prince of Wales's Stakes had three entries" (the Licensed Victuallers' had about as many hundreds), "and only two-from the same stable-having gone to the post, the 20 sovereigns were withdrawn" (the Victuallers give 500). "The betting was in small sums, and marked by extreme caution" (and no blame neither), "and the race a mockery" (if not a snare ?) "the favourite-a cripple-winning in a canter, the non-favourite never making an effort till the other had won." I suppress the names of these steeds, for obvious reasons. Gossip-another cripple-cantered over for the two-year-old stake." Frantic having disposed of the winner of the Derby at York, just picked up the Queen's Hundred en passant. Apropos of cripples, there occurred at this time an episode at Radcliffe Races, upon the the same authority, that reads with a relish....... "The backers of the field" (for the Innkeepers' selling Stakes) "fancying that something was up, purchased Cripple Kate before the race" (which she subsequently won) of Mr. Osborne for 40 sovereigns, and netted between £400 and £500 by the proceeding". The especial feature of the week was Derby. Like Brighton, it founded its pretensions on a new Stand, whereof the style is stated to be "that of the pavilions, or plaisances, of the time of Henry the Eighth and his pageant-loving daughter Elizabeth" (" and some say she loved Captain Brown of the Buffs")...... Now just note this as a pendant to the Newmarket job:-"Its entire cost will be about £2,400-about one-half that which was expended on the Brighton Stand-a comparison with which, as regards accommodation, convenience, elegance, or view, would be odorous'!" The company, both in quality and quantity, was a high sample; the sport good, though not first-rate. It was no fun, however, for Weathergage, who, having been on his legs almost without an interval since his Goodwood achievement, ran here once on the first, and twice on the second day!...... A glance at the Calendar, wherein will be found the details of other trysts incidental to this period, will show a great preponderance of professional proprietors among the nominators to the Stakes and Plates. Does this help us to a finger-post, pointing the end towards which the turf is hastening? Writing for those who take interest in this my theme, such a suggestion, let them credit me, is not out of season: and let them not be deaf to Rumour's thousand tongues; but bear in mind the counsel of the moralist "for all time"

"Give every man thine ear-but few thy voice."

THE MIST AND THE MOOR.

BY HORNYWINK.

CHAP. I.

Grousing in the Distance-An Adventure at hand.

Late in the evening, and towards the close of the summer of 18—, two horsemen were seen climbing a steep and somewhat narrow bridle-path, which, leading in a straight line over the Llanwonno mountains in Glamorganshire, resembled, from its rugged and uneven surface, a channel worn and washed away by torrents of winter rain. It had been formed originally, however, by long trains of mules, which, bearing heavy burdens of charcoal on their backs, plodded in Indian file over every obstruction; while their black driver, in the rear, urged forward the "mute companions of his toils" with crack of whip and wild unearthly shouts. Still, with the exception of the old parish-roads which traversed the base of the hills in a mazy and circuitous route, this was the ordinary, and indeed the only direct road which enabled the mounted traveller to cross with safety through the bogs and gullies of that mountain region. The horsemen seemed to know it well; and, to judge from their manner in the saddle, and the merry tone of their conversation, they appeared not to heed the difficulties of the rugged ascent, which men less practised than themselves would, in all probability, have deemed insurmountable. Their horses, too, with that quickness and precision of step which characterise all mountain-bred animals, seemed to sympathize with their riders in the anxiety to get forward; and, although the path was scarcely broad enough for the two to travel abreast, they frequently jostled for the lead, and, cropping back their ears, reluctantly gave way to each other as the tightened rein guided and restrained them in their almost perpendicular course. The ingenuity of the elder horseman seemed to be employed in a lively attempt to worm out a secret of which the younger was cognisant, but which, it appeared, he was little disposed to reveal; and every question in allusion to the subject was parried by the latter with the most perfect good humour, but with that dexterity and adroitness which a skilful fencer exhibits when he is determined not to be unmasked.

Before we proceed farther, however, it will be necessary to inform the reader who the travellers were, whence they came, and on what errand they were speeding.

It would hardly be just to describe either of them as superior in intellectual acquirements to the ordinary class of country gentlemen to which they belonged; but they were both remarkably quick and intelligent men, and had received from an early age a good classical education at a public school: and afterwards at Oxford, if the elder did not distinguish himself by appearing at the head of the class list,