weight at Ascot (where he was all but beaten) suiting James Robinson better than the boy who rode him. No reflection is intended upon Rogers individually-he can ride quite as well as any of his standing on the turf'; but that he should be preferred to Robinson, with the disadvantage of having to carry dead weight, can admit of no satisfactory explanation.

The most prominent result of this meeting, however, was the position of second favourite for the great race at Doncaster, to which Charles the Twelfth at once was elevated on his victory for the Trades Cup. It is worth while to examine the grounds upon which he is now backed at some 4 to 1 for the St. Leger. He was the only three-year-old in the Trades Handicap, for which he carried 6 st. 6 lb. By a reference to the Turf Register, an accurate view of the whole weighting for that race will be had enough for our purpose here to say, that Lanercost, for example, gave him two stone for his year. Now Lanercost, though, no doubt, a good honest horse, is by no means a flyer, and he was but two lengths from the winner at the finish. True, it seemed an easy victory for Charles; but he never was out of his ground from the start; and, as far as the running went, all was in his favour. The distance, two miles, told all against the heavy weights; in short, the game was played to suit him. If he won as easily as it appeared, it was a fair public trial-but nothing more certainly no line for the Leger, for which, over a far more trying course, he will have to carry better than two stone more. We do not, however, offer these remarks under any idea that they will influence the market, as that is generally most independent of such facts. The Liverpool Leger was, as it deserved to be, utterly without any prospective weight. Unless Kremlin be considerably improved since he shewed at Newmarket in the spring, Mr. Bowes's colt had little merit in defeating him by a length and a half. But enough of these disquisitions. In itself the meeting was excellent— excellent in sport, company, and future promise-it is not fair to encumber it with

110

SPORTING SUBJECTS IN THE EXHIBITIONS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY,

AND THE NEW SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS.

THESE Exhibitions will have closed, before the publication of the brief notices of them to which we are compelled to limit ourselves. Indeed, we doubt whether a lengthened critical analysis of the productions of sporting painters possesses enough of interest to entitle it to a place in these pages. With the exception of a very short crew of " eminent hands," that branch of the art pictorial is at present confined to "Nature's journeymen." Here and there you have indications of the clever draughtsman; but as to conception, or design, not one in a score could supply enough of either to furnish an appropriate device for a beer-shop. We admit that there are brilliant exceptions, but only sufficient to reveal the general darkness, not to dispel it. Let us bring this somewhat harsh prelude, however, to a close, and proceed to the actual business of our pages, commencing with the Royal Academy. The first item of any pretension, in our line, is

No. 26. Deer Stalking in the Forest of ATHLONE (as the catalogue has it), which stands for Athol. W. SIMSON. A very natural and pleasant bit to begin with. O si sic omnes.

No. 69. Princess Mary of Cambridge and a favourite Newfoundland Dog, the property of Prince George of Cambridge. E. LANDSEER, R. A. This great artist had quite a collection of pictures in the late Exhibition, of which, numerically-and, to our judgment, in excellence, also, this was the first. The noble animal is seated with the moiety of a biscuit on his nose, upon which the fairy Princess has just been able to command sufficient altitude to deposit it. Herein is excellence, seeing that it is nature transferred, by the cunning of the craftsman, to his canvas. O scabies of the brush and palette! go, gaze on such like, and learn that it is wiser and better to draw from life than from lignum vitæ.

No. 110. Comus, one of Her Majesty's favourite Riding-horses. A. COOPER, R. A. As this gentleman had several specimens of horse portraits in the late Exhibition, it may save time to deal, in this place, with his pretensions to that branch of the profession generally. At one period, the productions of his pencil were certainly not without merit, though his brain was wont to breed white horses with a fatal facility. But time, that changes all things, has sorely transformed our Royal Academician. Behold! Abraham hath " quite forgot himself to wood," the coursers that once were snowy, are now ligneous exceedingly. In an honest wish to serve this old gentleman, who seems to have no friends about him to hint an unpalatable truth, we most earnestly recommend him to dream no more of brush and easel. His day is gone by; of this, Tartar, Comus, and Bay Middleton, bear emphatic witness. Let him pause from his labour lost; for we can

assure him, that while he thinks, good easy man, he is embodying the horses of others, he is making an ass of himself.

No. 157. Tartar, the property of Her Majesty. W. BARRaud. Very correctly drawn, with much of the Landseer finish about it.

No. 228. Portrait of Mrs. Mitchell. F. GRANT. We notice this portrait for two causes; its passing excellence, and as being the production of the most distinguished sporting painter that has probably ever appeared. This gem will bear a comparison with anything that the pencils of Vandyke, Lely, Reynolds, or Lawrence have bequeathed Grant thou hast, by the genius whose inspiration is of nature's self, insured a fame that shall live in honour, long as the arts shall have one true disciple left.

No. 235. Portrait of Miss Eliza Peel, with Fido. E. LANDSEER, R. A. An exquisite morceau: the floating rose-leaves might move the envy of nature herself.

No. 241. Pluto carrying off Proserpine. W. ETTY, R. A. As studies, the horses in the chariot of Dis are full of merit, but really the ladies (to say nothing of the saffron-skinned god) are startling samples of the decency of the nineteenth century. A baker's dozen of brawny nymphs, with about a quarter of a yard of gauze to do duty as robes for the whole party!-Think of that, shades of our grandmothers! ye who would incontinently faint, if haply a pin was found wanting in your tuckers.

No. 267. The fatal Skirmish- a Moorish Girl bewailing the fate of her Lover. W. ALLEN, R. A. The Barb in this sketch is executed with great spirit and fidelity.

No. 289. Favourite Pony and Dogs, the property of Charles William Parke, Esq. M. P. E. LANDSEER, R. A. Lovely, most lovely!

No. 309. The Fox-hunter's Funeral. T. WOODWARD. As much like the scene to which it relates, as the Coryphees in La Sylphide are to the proper red shanks of the Highlands. Within the porch, upon his hunkers, sits a lackadaisical hound, who only wants a cambric handkerchief to make him perfect.

No. 325. Charles Brett, Esq., with his Horse Toby. A. COOPER, R. A. We hope that the Mr. Brett of this picture is a beau-ideal of Abraham's. If it, indeed, be a faithful delineation, then, when Providence constituted Mr. B. a gentleman, was an invaluable subject lost to Messrs. Howell and James.

No. 382. Fulford Park, October, 1838, with the Portrait of R. Hippesley Tuckfield, Esq. F. R. LEE, R. A. A delicious sylvan scene, peopled with appropriate delicacies, for Mr. Tuckfield has evidently had a most successful day's shooting.

No. 497. Bay Middleton, the property of Lord George Bentinck, M.P. A. COOPER, R. A. A portrait (!!) of the Bay Middleton, after the study of a crocodile, the back bearing the relation to the legs that a mile does to a mile-stone! The reader can't see the drift of the artist? We will explain: Abraham is jocular, and gives an illustration of the nag which Jack required, who had three messmates to take up at the turnpike. To be serious, the way in which this wretched daub was thrust into notice was a most disgusting piece of effrontery. Mr. Cooper may be a R. A. or an ASS, but the Royal Academy is a national Exhibition, and not one intended for private purposes or

individual show-off. Many a gem of art was stuck against the ceiling, all but out of sight, while a portrait of a horse, of as little general interest as if it swung on a sign-post, occupied one of the very best situations in one of the best rooms! Does the hanging committee imagine the public ignorant of the way in which such things are accomplished? If so, they are likely to be emancipated from their error, after a fashion more sincere than palatable.

No. 545. The Melton Hunt going to draw the Ram's Head cover. F. GRANT. No sporting picture, probably, that ever appeared, created such an interest as "The meeting of Her Majesty's Stag Hounds at Ascot Heath." The Melton Hunt is designed as a companion to it, and truly may they be called par nobile. This splendid performance contains six and thirty portraits, executed with a minuteness of fidelity never contemplated, upon a similar scale, by any predecessor of Mr. Grant. All who have seen it, will feel no praise that we could bestow adequate to its worth. Such as have not will have an opportunity of estimating its excellence, as an engraving of it will, with all expedition, be published by Messrs. Hodgson and Graves, of Pall Mall, executed by the engraver of the Royal Hunt. We leave that work to justify our opinion of its original.

THE NEW SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS.

We regret that this Exhibition, in its youth of promise, was so scantily supplied with those subjects which alone come within our province. We visited it on several occasions during the season-the last being the day on which it was announced to close. We believe we only state the fact, when we say that, on that day, scarce a single picture of merit in it remained unsold-a proof that talent is its own reward. Of the few sporting subjects exhibited, the first was

No. 9. Harm-watch-Harm-catch. C. H. WEIGELL. The dramatis persona are a cock and a fox, the first quite up to the general excellence of Mr. Weigell's chanticleers: a very clever composition.

No. 107. The Whipper-in. G. H. LAPORTE. A very natural and effective sketch. Mr. Laporte is a most careful delineator of everything connected with the economy of the chase.

No. 137. Head of a Fox, from Nature. Miss L. CORBAUX. We trust it may be no disparagement to our gallantry, that we cannot commend this production.

No. 265. Study of a Fox from the Zoological Gardens. Miss L. CORBAUX. Here again we cannot write ourselves 'content.' It may be a fair presentment of a Zoological Gardens' fox, but it by no means conveys the idea of the animal of chase so called, which men are addicted to pursue with hound and horn, and likely to continue of such taste, though all Cockneydom were one complete and perfect Doctor Styles.

A HUNTING TOUR IN THE MIDLAND COUNTIES.

BY NIMROD.

THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT'S HOUNDS AND COUNTRY. THE QUORN UNDER LORD SUFFIELD.-CROXTON PARK RACES.

(Continued from page 33.)

THE post-boy who drove me to Badmington, told me what very much surprised me; but all that he did tell me was afterwards confirmed by the Duke. He said, so numerous had been the highway robberies lately, in that part of the country, that the farmers, riding home from market, carried either pistols, or life-preservers, and that even wagoners, going for lime or coals, were knocked down on the road, and robbed of the money taken to pay for them. One of this description of footpads, indeed, had only a few days before been committed to prison by the Duke. On this subject, although not connected with sporting, I beg permission to say a few words.

I was once pulled up, and very sharply too, by one of the London papers, the "Morning Chronicle," I think, for venturing an opinion that the modern system of general education would fail in its great object, viz. the reformation of the manners and habits of the lower orders of the people; that, without the cultivation of the heart and its affections, the acquisition of knowledge by that class of persons, would prove but the vain amusement of an idle hour; that it would not enable a man to discharge better the duties of his situation, or to gain more bread-in short, that it would (which it has done) create a power, not to good, but to evil. And who, let me ask, can refute the truth of this opinion? Has crime diminished? Certainly not. Are there not five murders committed now, for one perpetrated twenty or thirty years back? Twenty or thirty years back, there were two or three restless fellows in each rural parish, bent on mischief. Now, there are at least three and twenty. Think of the state of Worcester gaol a short time ago! Two hundred prisoners in it, and this after the passing of the non-imprisonment bill! The annals of our country cannot find a parallel to this fact in peaceful times. And what has it done for the menial class? Grooms persuade their masters to have their horses clipt, that they may find time to read "Nicholas Nickleby," and "Sam Slick;" and as for those of the softer sex, it has made one half idle, and the other half no better than they should be. As Lawyer Adolphus said of them, they can dress their hair in drop curls, and drink a drop of anything afterwards; but dressing a dinner is considered quite infra dig. But to be serious. Who could have persuaded me, when I first knew the neighbourhood of Tetbury, forty years back, that I should live to see the day when no man's life, much less his property, should be safe from destruction, in two hours after the sun had set? or, that poor wagoners should be knocked down and plundered on their road to fetch a load of coals? Be assured, reader, whoever you may be, a mistake has been committed, which cannot now be corrected. The merely reading and writing, without the elements of religion to form education, is of no