in two with his double thong. Ah! "the
southerly winds and the cloudy skies" that
proclaimed thy hunting mornings: where are
they now? Where are the gay young bucks
from London, with bran-new scarlet and
leathers, the chefs d'Å“uvres of Nugee, or Crellin,
or Buckmaster: the lads that took the
astonishing leaps o'er hedges, and ditches, and
stone walls, when bright eyes were looking at
them, and went round by gates and gaps, like
sensible fellows, when bright eyes were
somewhere else? They are gone like the smoke of
the cigars they puffed as they rode to cover;
like the mighty breakfasts they consumed at
Budgerow House at thy expense; like the
mightier dinners and libations they achieved
at ditto ditto, when the chase was over, and
the fox was caught. Who will realise tableaux
vivants of Luke Clennell's picture of a
hunting dinner now?—who will preside at
joyous banquets in thy great dining-room,
and stir up the punch-bowl (nasty fellow!)
with the fox's brush, and give "Tom Moody,"
and fall first beneath the table among black
bottles and unsteady top-boots? The ancient
huntsman has transferred his stained scarlet
frock and grog-blossomed countenance to
another master; they are going to build an
Agapemone, or a Sanatorium, or a Puseyite
convent on the ruins of thy renaissance kennel;
the very ragged boy that followed barefoot, in
his torn red jacket, thy hounds, and begged
for coppers because he was in at the death;
the pepper-and-salt farmer, who began by
swearing at the fox and then mounted his cob
and followed it; the parson on his big brown
horse; the staring red-haired children; the
old dames that hobbled out from cottages;
the bumpkins with heads of hair that looked
like thatch, who put their hands beside their
mouths and yelled a rustic Tallyho! as the
hunt swept by:—where are they now?
Ichabod, Ichabod—enough. We have all
been sold up more or less, at some time or
another. We have all been bankrupt, or
insolvent, or have compounded with our
creditors, in friendship, love, hopes, ambition,
truth. Some of us, too, have paid but little,
very little in the pound.

From dogs to horses. Tattersall's again;
but this time the spirited auctioneers leave
but little room to surmise. Thirteen racers
to be sold. All from irreproachable dams
and by aristocratic sires. The Beauty, by
Candlebox, out of Sophronisba, brother to
Columbine, sire to Rhodomontade, to be sold
by auction. With all his engagements. With
him are other horses and mares, all of equally
illustrious descent. Some have won plates in
canters, and others cups in hand-gallops, and
others again have walked over the course for
purses full of sovereigns. All are to be sold.
With their engagements. It does not require
vision quite as acute as that necessary for
seeing through a millstone, to discern who
the gentleman going abroad is. I think Sir
Gybbe Roarer knows him. Sir G. Roarer,
Bart., whose horse Ramoneur won the Sootybridge
sweepstakes. Sir G. R., Bart., whose
filly, Spagnoletta, was scratched just before
the St. Rowels, last year. The same Baronet
who started Polly for the Pine-apple stakes,
and is supposed to have given Jack Bellybaud,
his jockey, instructions not to win, he
having laid against himself considerably; but
Jack, having drank too much Champagne,
forgot himself and did win, to the Baronet's
wrath and consternation. Sir G. R. had a
share in the horse which started for—what
was it?—the Bumblebury Cup, entered under
a certain name—was it Theodosius?—and as
of a certain age, but which was subsequently
discovered to be a horse called Toby, two
years older. Can Sir Gybbe Roarer, Bart.,
be the gentleman who is going abroad? I
think he is. He is always going abroad, and
selling his horses and buying fresh ones.
With their engagements. He stands to win
a pretty sum on the next French steeplechase.
I hope he may get it. Sir Gybbe Roarer
dresses very like his groom, and has a hoarse
voice and an intensely shiny hat. When he
wins he treats everybody with Champagne,
beggars included, and throws red-hot
half-pence out of hotel windows; when he loses,
he horsewhips his servants and swears.
There is but one book to him in the world,—
his betting-book, for he wants no Racing
Calendar; he is that in himself. He has a
penchant for yachting sometimes, between
Ascot and the Leger. His yacht is called
the Handicap. Will he ever go to the Levant
in her, I wonder?

Supposing that, looking at "Bell's Life" as
you and I do—not as a mere chronicle of
sporting occurrences, a calendar for reference
and information, but as a curiously accurate,
though perhaps unconscious mirror of what,
from the amusement of the mass of the people,
has come to be the engrossing business and
occupation of a very considerable section of
that people,—we ponder a moment over Sir
Gybbe Roarer's race-horses, stepping down in
the spirit, if you like, to Tattersall's yard,
where they are to be sold.

Here they are, slender symmetrical creatures
with satin coats, with trim and polished hoofs,
with plaited manes, with tails so neatly
cropped that not one hair is longer than
another. Full of blood, full of bone, full of
mettle and action, almost supernaturally
speedy of foot, patient, brave, and generous
in spirit: high-mettled racers, in fact. Now,
to what cunning knave can it first have
occurred to build on these beautiful, generous
animals, a superstructure of fraud and
knavery, and low chicanery? Why should
a horse be used as the corner-stone of the
Temple of Roguery? And why, more than
this, should these few stone-weight of horseflesh
be capable of producing the mighty
effects they do upon the manners and morals
of a great nation? The Beauty, Sophronisba,
Columbine: they are not war-horses; their