EMBELLISHMENTS. ST. LAWRENCE: WINNER OF THE CHESTER CUP, 1847.-ENGRAVED " ALL BUT BAGGED." ENGRAVED BY J. WESTLEY, FROM A PAINTING BY G. ARMFIELD. CONTENTS. Page. DIARY FOR MARCH THE TURF.-BY CRAVEN HINTS FOR A "CRACK" CUP HANDICAP.—BY THE DRUID COUNTRY PRACTICE. BY GELERT 153 . 165 . 167 ST. LAWRENCE: WINNER OF THE CHESTER CUP, 1847.-BY CASTOR . 176 "ALL BUT BAGGED."-BY OXONIAN . 182 HUNTING, AND THE MILLION.-BY HARRY HIEOVER . 183 SKETCHES FROM THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.-BY THE AUTHOR SCENES AND SPORTS IN FOREIGN LANDS."-THE CAPTAIN PIGSKIN'S VISIT TO THE BATH AND BRISTOL STeeple . 197 . 205 . 213 FINE ARTS.-THE BRITISH STUD: CRUCIFIX AND LANER 723 2 39 8 0 8 45 724 3 23 9 2410 5 11 25 4 210 4511 25 226 4 37 notide at noon 21 W MARCH (CAMBRIDGESHIRE) ST. r 6 22 T GRAND MILITARY S. C. AT LEA-s 6 1427 5 8 0 30 0 55 23 F Aylsham (Norf.) Fair. [MINGTON r 5 58 28 24 S Loughborough Fair. 25 Fifth Sunday in Lent, 26 M LEAMINGTON ANNUAL ST. CH. s 6 21 27 T NORTHAMPTON RACES. 5 36 1 15 1 35 SETS. afternoon s 6 17 N 1 55 2 15 r 5 53 r5 49 28 W Chipping Norton Fair. 29 T CROXTON PARK RACES. [ends. r 5 54 30 F LANARK S. C. Cambridge Terms 6 27 31 S Ragland F. Oxford Term ends. r 5 39 Roscommon (Ireland) 2 Stratford on Avon 8 Grand Military, at Leaming 13 & 14 Leamington Annual 17 COURSING MEETINGS 19 Belsay MARCH. 2 6 Emo Hunt (Ireland)....20 & 2. Biggar....... ....... 6, 7 & 8 THE TURF. BY CRAVEN. 66 In the last number of this periodical there appeared a paper, of which the subject was, Tattersall's, as it was and as it is." It was the narrative of one, if I mistake not, who might have prefaced his confessions as Eneas opened the detail of his adventures to the Queen of Carthage. The polished surface of high civilization and modern refinement covers many a shoal and quicksand, of which the chart of your philosophy makes no note. Thus the essay alluded to, while it sets out the list of professionals who did, and do, occupy their business in the ring, says nothing of the hosts of amateurs that fretted their hour upon its eventful stage; played their parts in its melancholy pageant, and then were seen no more. The Leg is a moral parasite, as much the natural growth of the circumstances we find him in, as the ivy and honeysuckle of the soil in which they flourish. His presence excites our annoyance; but it affects neither our sympathy nor surprise. "Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender arm As the locust to the leaf, as the leech to the vein, is the Leg to the thoughtless and the prodigal, that have the world "as their confectionary." He is less mischievous, notwithstanding, than many who adopt the life of the social rover. He preys upon men's abundance-as the wolf on the fold-though he does not turn aside should, haply, one of the lean kine throw itself in his way. He is wily, wary, and wise-at least, until success has made him so bold as to provoke fate.... "Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune." He is base; but then his business is not gentle. The chronicler of Tattersall's thus exhibits him, pronouncing the cabala of his sect. "Go to h-ll! I have got the money, and I mean to keep it." His maxim is no mystery; those who seek him know the terms of their association. The amateur of the craft of betting is altogether an exotic. His introduction to the odds is like the first taste of olives to the palate. He wonders what pleasure people find in them, and goes on "because it's nonsense to back out of a thing when you have begun it." A "book" is no more necessary to him before dinner than a bottle of bitter berries after it. Nevertheless, both are in favour with his set, and so he follows suit. He is a man of fashion-or would be so. There are persons of condition, indeed, who profess "betting round," that notoriously "live and move" in the best company by the machinery of "hedging," that make a profit of the "pull" their position affords them. These, however, are few, and becoming less every day. Your man of ton bets, as he keeps a moor in the Highlands, a yacht in the Solent, a stud in Leicestershire, a--but there is no need to go through the catalogue, it is part of his commissariat-the light arms with which he keeps off ennui. His apes, the "seroum pecus". "Ut mihi sæpe Bilem, sæpe jocum vestri movêre tumultus !" the "would be" rakes, and fainers of a bad pre-eminence, bet that they may get credit for vice, and admission into "the twice two thousand." These are the agents ordained for the preservation of "order." Heirs to gold for which a soap-boiler stunk through half a century, or a butcher bartered the light and fragrance of nature for the gory ghastliness of the slaughter-house, they hasten to dissolve the spell, that the equilibrium of society may be maintained. Of such stuff are the betting circles constituted. It is no doubt pitiful to see a gentleman-one of undoubted honour and principle-reduced to miserable shifts, or desperate defiance, by casualties over which he could have no control; and these are inseparable from the system of speculation on the turf as at present recognized. It is, no doubt, capital fun to contemplate the "cleaning out" of some undeniable snob; the reeking sacrifice of some "fat and greasy citizen." It is, no doubt, a striking episode in our national economy to observe individuals, on days appointed for settling racing accounts, laden with bank notes (and distributing them like the advertisements of cheap tailors), that never in their lives were known to pay a tradesman, and each of whom patronizes the policy expressed in that celebrated latitudinarian couplet : "I spend what I've got, and I save what I owe; This, and matter of a like sort, is the stuff whereof the plot and action of modern horse-racing is made up. Had it gone no further, the catastrophe might have been left to point the moral. But this was not the case. By degrees the audience were so interested "by the very cunning of the scene," that they were fain to become parcel of the dramatis personce. It was not enough for Snooks that he had never seen the colour of Lord John Two-to-one's money-and he had been his lordship's " purveyor" from the day he first took up his residence in the Albany, now six years come Michaelmas-but he must needs have a shy at the Derby, as well as his betters. So in the evening, at his " free-and-easy," he induced the landlord to lay him the odds against Shillelagh, and would have won them if Plenipotentiary had not come in first. Boniface soon found similar customers on the increase; so to his trade of drawing "swipes" he added that of drawing "sweeps."......Anon. And from a retail business it comes to be a wholesale operation: then a mania: then a misdemeanor: and there for the present it rests. all this arose out of the perverse spirit of him who, "Leaving his wealth and ease, A stubborn will to please, went a seeking after strange fancies. It had as much in common with the sport of horse-racing as grubbing for gold in the "diggings" of the Sacramento has with the programme of her Majesty's Theatre. The turf, in its recreative character, is a fitting subject for discussion at the present moment. The enormous increase of thorough-bred stock, just as the market for it has, as regards exportation, all but absolutely closed, offers for consideration a question altogether apart from the influences of racing lotteries or racing legislation. It furnishes an exposition of deep importance of the popular taste and the popular bias. It affords a commentary on rural circumstance and rural confidence that all who run may read. The time has arrived in which it was asserted commerce should trample rustic hope beneath its foot. What does this one fact suggest? That the rural life of England is in its spring of promise. We know that it is peaceful: we are thus taught that it is prosperous and pleased. We have learnt-and our hearts have leaped proudly at the lesson-that we are the masters of our own destiny. "Merry England" will be the apotheosis of England in the days of her glory and her greatness. It was a wise nomenclature which gave to her sports the title of national. They are her truest patriots-the emblems of her idiosyncracy-the tests of her position-the pilots that weather the social storm. Beyond the Line, why is that snippish type of woodcraft-the "Bobbery Pack"-welcome as the water-brook to the spirit that whilom held all out of the circle of the midland counties slow? Listen to the reply: "Floating past me seems My childhood in this childishness of mine: I care not-'tis a glimpse of Auld Lang Syne.'" Goldsmith-Celt that he was-acknowledged this instinct, as it applies to the Saxon, with all the passion of conviction. His "Deserted Village" is an allegory, whose "painted populace" stand for English natural feelings and national attachments. It may be held infra dig. upon the shores of Cam and Isis, by such as consume the midnight oil (the disciples of the grape are of a more boon philosophy)it may be regarded, hard by the Thames and the Mersey, as flat and unprofitable "this childishness of mine," yet I cannot choose but think the popular sports of this country will one day be referred to as far from the worst criterion of her social and political position. The statistics of the turf in the year which closes the first half of the nineteenth century would be a document well worth the trouble of the |