the pier says to everybody else, "That's Mr. Cringle, and that's the Daffy, a neatish-looking craft." The Dollonds and other useful inventions of a similar nature having telegraphed Mr. Cringle aboard, and Mr. Cringle in return having made his observation on "the people" ashore, the gallant Captain Closeshave is found to be coming in from his celebrated clipper, the "Screw ;"-and so the day passes in delightful tranquility, standing, perhaps, in no unfavourable contrast with the bustling doings of yesterday or to-morrow. At Southampton, Mrs. Chisholm was busily engaged in giving her blessing to a ship-load of gold-diggers; but not being previously advised, I was unfortunate enough to miss the ceremony. Above or below bar, there isn't much to make a man walk about Southampton, and so I went to ground at the Dolphin, the house where Mr. Thackeray's friend Josh -if I recollect right-had his first pull at "the heavy" after his voyage home. The only remarkable thing here was a bald-headed gentleman who had got an artful idea of making a salad-anchovy, cold potatoes, Harvey-sauce, and so on. This he afterwards associated with muttonchops; altogether rather a curious matter of taste, with which, however, he contrived to inoculate a couple of accommodating friends. Having witnessed this performance with considerable satisfaction, I went back to the boat, where we shipped a few more brass-buttons for the coming contest. A word here on the yachtman's costume. In former times, previous to taking out young hounds, a whipper-in would give each a few warning cracks across the head, with a "Steady there!" "War hare!" "War riot!" or war whatever the prevailing weakness might be. I should say some of our sea-faring friends wanted a little" war brass-buttons!" to start with. I saw three or four fellows nearly covered with them. Used, however, in moderation they have a capital effect; and indeed the yachtman's dress, as now fashioned, may be worn very becomingly. The long loose pilot-jacket is a capital exchange for the short, schoolboy thing in which I saw one six-foot unfortunate (it had evidently been carefully preserved); then the blue wellcut waistcoat, with just one row of the club buttons; trousers of the same hue, and anything but patent polished boots; with the knowing little shiny hat-turn out an amateur very like a sailor as well as like a gentleman. We hear sometimes of a man going hunting for the sake of the red coat; I wonder how many the brass-buttons have turned into sailors? I think I have already observed that I had very little idea of the excitement attending a yacht match. Very little indeed, I must say. Fancy yourself on the pier at Ryde-a capital point to see the best part of the race from-and fancy a whole bevy of yachts dotted about before you. Four of these, which don't appear to move a yard in a minute, are racing; and the excited people in the other boats, as well as us on the pier, are watching them. You never saw such a deadlylively-looking lot in all your life--at least, I never did; but then I never saw a yacht-race before. Take as a sample our old friend Beau Biglimbs. There he sits, you see, in the short hat, and waistcoat covered with brass buttons, of course. These proclaim him a member of the Club; and just mark the intense interest with which he watches the manoeuvres of the "Alarm," or the progress of the "Gloriana.” Ile has a glass for that especial purpose, and, like a provident man, a number of "Soapey Sponge," as well. That's it, sir-a page of "Soapey Sponge," and a look at the Gloriana-another paragraph, and another look. There is no hurry, anyhow. I thought I was a lazy man till I got here; but I begin to have very serious doubts about it now. But it is serene," though. "Which is the America ?" and "How long till dinner?" These are about the leading questions. Luckily, however, there is another boat for Cowes; and as the Beau doubles up his "Soapey," and starts for head-quarters, we'll go too, and see the run-in. It certainly must be more exciting here, and any man of sense who wanted to enjoy the bustle of the thing would have never been anywhere else. Oh, that bustle at Cowes that languid-looking lot again, before the Club-house and in the Club-house! those dreadfully-fatigued brass-buttons, and those yet more unhappy minus-brass-buttons, with nothing to look at and nowhere to sit! And oh, you Gloriana and Gipsy Queen, if you only knew the intensity of agony, or agony of intensity, you are occasioning, you'd be home long before this! There is no chance of that, though, as yet, and no fireworks till nine; but, the Gods be praised, it is dinner-time at last! "What will I have?" Mutton-chops and anchovy salad, to be sure; and bring a gallon of stout-and let's know what's won as soon as ever it's possible. Do you hear, sir? I mean to say that yachting isn't a national sport. I mean to say it isn't a sport of the people. I mean to say that the exciting contest between the Claymore and the Gloriana assembled some hundred or two of depressed spectators on the Cowes strand, while the fireworks on the same evening drew together some thousands. But I haven't a yacht, you'll say. Suppose I haven't a race-horse? Suppose, after the great sport of the day, you finished in the evening with fire-works from the Ascot Stand? How many people do you think would go to the races, and how many to the fireworks? It is going aboard and going ashore and "Soapey Sponge," and brass buttons and fireworks, over and over again. Not one man in a hundred, that I saw, appeared to care more about the race than an old farmer I once met returning from the Henley regatta-"Well, sir, some says Cambridge won, and some says Oxford won d-d if I knows, and d-d if I cares!" Whether it was the Gloriana or the Claymore, or anything else, or whether they ever got back at all (which, by the last reports, was doubtful), "d-d if I knows, and d-d if I cares. This may be a libel on the Cowes audience; but if they had a deeper feeling, it was wonderfully well disguised. I know all this is high treason. I know what the "wooden walls" and "Rule, Britannia!" and so on, will say to it; and I know what a crowd of these excited people will rush to the rescue, and contradict me. If, though, there should really be one man who felt just a little as I fancied he felt, will he be kind enough to drop a line-post-paid— to say how he got on during the Saturday, when I understand there was a yet more engrossing contest. The state of my health unfortunately compelled me to leave. Two such stirring days in one week would have been too much, indeed, for a not naturally strong constitution. Oh, these first impressions! Beau Biglimbs and his buttons, and his Soapey Sponge"! And that's a yacht-race! 66 NOTES OF THE MONTH PAST. A proposition to put the First of September back for two or three weeks sounds as if the month was come on us a little too fast. This was intended out of consideration for the second brood of young birds, who are reported scarcely strong enough as yet for the smell of powder. We fear, though, there is little chance of the suggestion being anything like generally carried out. Another reference to Hawthorn's report will show that the grousing did not open quite as favourably as might have been; the weather here, though, only spoilt a few days' sport, instead of the hopes of a season. Yachting and cricketing still continue in great force; the Cowes week being more than usually brilliant as far as the attendance of company and vessels went, though the interest in the matches was considerably damped by the almost dead calms in which the great events were got through. The Eleven of England have commenced their tour under better auspices. Their matches, so far, have embraced the grand week at Canterbury, when Kent succumbed to the Eleven in one innings; and the Gentlemen of Kent, after a closer contest with the Gentlemen of England; two very close but drawn matches with Newark and the Lansdowne Club; and another drawn one with Hungerford, in the first innings of which the picked Eleven of England made up twelve runs amongst them! We see the members of the Hambledon Hunt, reaching a hundred and twenty subscribers, have just presented a very handsome piece of plate to Mr. Smith on his giving up the country. The testimonial, subscribed to by all parties, speaks for itself, and shows that our Hambledon friends can appreciate a good sportsman when they get him amongst them. We can only wish them as good a successor. Connected, by the way, with the noble science, we have to announce the death of a contemporary of the Master of the Hambledon, Mr. Fielding, who died very suddenly of disease of the heart, at General Wyndham's, early in the past month. Better known, perhaps, amongst his friends as "Jemmy Fielding," he had hunted in most of our crack counties, his last quarters being in Leicestershire. Mr. Justice Wightman decided at the late Liverpool Assizes that a trotting match was a legal race; and the one in question being fairly contested, the stakes of £100 were directed to be paid over to the winner. The same learned judge summed up against a foot-race, though mainly on a point of law, as to the full claim of the plaintiff, the pedestrian, who had only partially "made" his own stake. "Teddy the Fish" and "Dodger May," two well-known hands, are now enjoying six months each, with hard labour, thanks to the exertions of Mr. Bishop and the recently established Anti-Dog-Stealing Association. PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS OF THE METROPOLIS. "We belong to the unpopular family of Tell-truths, and would not flatter Apollo for his lyre."-ROB ROY, It is too early for the birds, and it is too late for the season, yet withal some random shots have been fired at the letter of Mr. Charles Mathews, aërostatic folly; (high but unseasonable game); and M. Jullien's Opera, by many marksmen not so well prepared to go off as their guns. Inclination being for "fresh fields," and duty imperatively denying the desired elysium, what has the disappointed biped to do but to remain and-grumble-of course ?-a prerogative fully indulged at all times-now especially-never, perhaps, with less degree of justice than in the instance of M. Jullien's opera. The trigger of complaint seldom has been pulled more captiously than in the charges which have been levelled at the composer of "Pietro Il Grande," who nevertheless rises from the fire scathless. How could it be otherwise, when powder has only been expended by the carping, cavilling, discontented spirits that are to be found in all ranks, and files too! Because M. Jullien is the composer of polka music, he is not deemed capable of giving to the world an opera. Such appears to be the grand principle on which the opposition is grounded. Nothing more absurd was ever broached. It might just as reasonably be urged that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not possibly be a minister by reason of his being an author. Or that Boswell's finger-supposing that the heavy biogra pher had been the Orpheus of his day-could not extract sweet sounds from a lyre; forasmuch as it had pleased his prodigious patron, Dr. Johnson, once upon a time, in a pleasant mood, to apply the said finger as a stopper to the pipe of the great lexicographer— "Imperial Cæsar, dead, and turned to clay, May stop a hole to keep the wind away." The grand object of visiting the Opera or theatres, is there is no gainsaying, to derive amusement. Stop, stop!" cries one, you forget there is such a purpose to be served as to see and be seen"-which, with all deference be it observed, is deriving amusement after a fashion. With this ever in view, M. Jullien never disappoints his audience. Talk as you may, this is success: so with his present work-it is a success, and a great success; for the listeners are pleased, and no better triumph could be achieved than in an opera proving in every sense to be an entertainment. Indeed, it amply serves to invest the conclusion of the season of the ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA with a renown well deserved, from being honourably won. Following the axiom to "shoot folly as it flies," there cannot be too many shafts aimed at the height of absurdity-or, what is worse by far, cruelty--to which ballooning is being carried; to say nothing of the individual whose antics have been displayed from the car of a balloon, if his taste incline to jeopardize that, the use of which appears, from his maniacal evolutions, to be questionable-viz., his life. But where the existence of such a noble creature as a horse is perilled, and where all manner of torture is put into execution, by making him subservient to some addle-headed mountebank, who, for the sake of putting money in his purse, chooses to bestride, in the words of the bill, "his celebrated aërial high-mettled charger," it is time that the most decisive steps on the part of the Executive should be adopted, to put an end to proceedings which ignominiously tend to mark the excessive brutality of the age. It is pleasant to turn from such ferociously unpleasant doings to the agreeable "Letter from Mr. Charles Mathews to the Dramatic Authors of France," the copyright convention with which country cannot be viewed in an unsatisfactory light from one fact alone without it this letter never would have been published, the world thereby missing much amusement. A more sprightly, vivacious, sparkling, and pleasant brochure could not be conceived, abounding as it does in merry conceits happily expressed. It is, in fact, the author before you, rattling on in that pleasant, gay, and high, spirited tone for which he is so conspicuously distinguished. He is at home in everything-but his argument, and in that he is indeed abroad. It certainly is vastly amusing to be told that we are not indebted to the French for our theatrical food. Why, without what Mr. Mathews terms the "French kickshaws," the English stage would come to a dead lock-the "kickshaws" are the horses that draw John Bull's coach. Without their aid of late years the English stage must have broken down. It is with the lively author of this letter, as it was with the Prussian soldiers when quaffing their wine, they made hideously wry faces, but still they continued to hold their cups to be replenished so with Mr. Charles Mathews--he kicks, but still holds out his hand. STATE OF THE ODDS, &c. SALE OF BLOOD STOCK By Messrs. Tattersall, at Rawcliffe Paddocks, on Tuesday, the 17th August: THE RAWCLIFFE PADDOCK STUD. THE PROPERTY OF MR. H. S. THOMPSON. GS. Emeute, by Lanercost, out of Bellona, with a colt foal by Chanticleer, and covered by the Flying Dutchman 215 Walfruna (the dam of Lucy Banks), by Velocipede, with a colt foal by Harkaway, and covered by the Flying Dutchman.... 150 A Bay Mare, by Touchstone, out of Jet, with a colt foal by Chanticleer, and covered by him again 81 Uriana, by Idle Boy, out of Venus 65 Pelissa, by Spencer, dam by Velocipede, covered by Chanticleer. 62 61 ... |