THE GREAT METROPOLITAN HANDICAP.-The Licensed Victuallers and their friends are hard at work once more to get up a good bonus, and from the subscriptions already reported there seems little doubt of their reaching as strong a figure as ever. A longish string of horses, the joint property of Lord Strathmore and Mr. Carew, will be sold at Tattersall's on our publishing day. They include Miss Burns, Philosopher, Eva, Edipus, Red Lancer, and others. The following names have been given : Lord Eglinton's c. foal by Irish Birdcatcher out of Rockalda The Sheltic Hot Cross Bun Lord Eglinton's filly foal by Lanercost out of Rectitude.. .... Mr. Greville's yearling filly by Plenipotentiary out of Velveteen. Captious Plot Bruunow 'THE CHESTER CUP.-50 to 1 each against Lismahago, Essedarius, Dough, Lady Evelyn, Chanticleer, Peep-o'-day-Boy, the Whim colt, and Melody; 66 to 1 each against Malton, Velox, Damask, Emma, Sir Richard, Vesta, The Baroness, Idle Boy, Ribaldry, Cossack, Testator, Cockermouth, and John Cosser; 100 to 1 each against Hotspur, Raby, Gizelle, Thringarth, Chatterer, Cadger, Snowstorm, Fugleman, Kennington, Iron Rail, Horn of Chase, Kissaway, Shilmalier West, Halo, and Mulgrave. THE 2,000 GUINEAS STAKES.-2 to 1 against Bee-Hunter; 6 to 1 against Hardinge; 8 to 1 againt Brother to Epirote; and 20 to 1 against Ghio. THE DERBY, 1851.-66 to 1 each against Auchorite, Hippolytus (late Childwall), and Hatherston. EMBELLISHMENTS. THE WHADDON CHASE HOUNDS. THE PROPERTY OF W. SELBY LOWNDES, ESQ. ENGRAVED BY J. SCOTT, FROM A PAINTING BY G. MORLEY. AND THE BARBEL. ENGRAVED BY J. WESTLEY, FROM A PAINTING DY WILLIAMS. CONTENTS. DIARY FOR FEBRUARY NUGE DIANE.-BY CRAVEN ANECDOTE OF THE LATE MR. MUSTERS.-BY ACTEON SUCCESSFUL MAN. BY FOXGLOVE 89 94 103 . 107 . 116 . 118 NOTES OF THE CHASE.-BY CECIL SPORTING INCIDENTS AT HOME AND ABROAD (FROM THE MS. A TROLLING ADVENTURE.-BY TOM TROLL STATE OF THE ODDS THE TURF REGISTER, 1849: MACCLESFIELD-MONMOUTH-WREXHAM 126 134 147 . 148 151 ROYAL CALE DONIAN HUNT AND STIRLING-RUGELY-SECOND OCTO- h. m. d. h. m. h. m. h. m 1 F Partridge and Pheasant shooting r 7 41 19 10 43 2 S Candlemas Day 3 Seragesima Sunday. [endss 4 492011 54 4 MASHDOWN PARK COURSING M. 9 S 10 11 M Quinquagesima Sunday Morning. 5 5 5 25 5 45 65 6 30 6 50 7 15 7 35 s 4 5322 1 2 r 7 35 23 r 7 3225 4 511 2511 5 r 7 2827 5 43 0 17 0 44 s 5 428 6 24 1 6 1 30 [MEETING r 7 2529 7 0 1 50 2 10 12 T Shrove Tu. EVERLEY COURSINGS 5 7N 13 W Ash Wednesday. Lent begins 26 T WATERLOO COURSING MEETINGS 5 3314 RISES 27 W LIVERPOOL GRAND STEEPLE C.r 6 53 15 7 3 2 35 2 55 28 T SOUTH LANCASHIRE COURSINGS 5 4616 8 19 3 20 3 40 [MEETING STEEPLE CHASES IN FEBRUARY. Bromley (Kent)..... 5 | Carmarthenshire ....18 | Lincoln..........21 | Liverpool National..27 Ashdown Park........ 4 &c. | Combermere 12| Whitehaven. ...... 18 & 19 Newmarket...... 4, 5, 6 & 7 North Berwick and DirBroughton (Open) 19 & 20 leton....................................... 12 Lambourn ......... 20 & 21 Spelthorne (Swindon) 5 & 6 Baron Hill (Sling)............. 6 Everley .......12 &c. Newcastle.......... 20 & 21 Altcar 7 & 8 Hornby & Brough..12, 18, & 14 Middleton.......... 22 & 23 Lytham New Club 7 & 8 Cardington (Open) Waterloo (Liverpool) 26 & 28 Aske (Richmond) 7 & 8 South Lancashire.... 28, &c. The past year closed with what is called a good old-fashioned frost, and that upon which we entered with the calends of January opened like boon old Flavius's ode to Augustus Cæsar. The woodland echo slumbered, and silent was the horn of chase. The time was meet for meditation: the occasion fruitful in pleasant themes. Present were grateful hopes and gracious anticipations both of the dulcia oblivia as well as the more weighty issues of life. "A Scotchman," says the author of Waverley, "is always thinking of rent day; or, if easy on that head, of hell in the next world." I do not think that such is our mission or the design of man's pilgrimage, in which, though there be evil, there is a good to set against it a thousand-fold. Some one lately favoured the English reader with the "shadows" which his muse was pleased to "cast before." He placed a New Zealander upon one of the ruined arches of London Bridge, and put into his mouth a comparison between England in decay and the lost nations of Rome and Greece and Assyria. The fate of Lot's wife is emblematic of the bitterness which comes of looking back. subjoin an anecdote from Colonel Napier's "Excursions in Southern Africa," with far more of the true Christian spirit in it than marks the philosophy of those who do wholesale business in the unmitigated-grief line. I "During one of my wanderings I stumbled on a small thatched cottage, or rather hut, in a remote and secluded dell. Hot, thirsty, and fatigued, I gladly accepted the proffered hospitality of the aged man who owned this humble abode. He regaled me with all he had to offer a draught of milk with some coarse bread and fruit; whilst partaking of which, I learned from him the story of his life, and what had brought him to such a distant, unfrequented spot. Mine host, apparently between seventy and eighty years of age-an Englishman by birth, and brought up to a seafaring course of life-was one of the few survivors belonging to the crew of a ship which nearly half a century ago was wrecked upon this stormy coast. After wandering about for some time, he at last took to himself a native wife, and settled down in this retired spot, where 'The world forgetting-by the world forgot,' he has happily and contentedly spent so large a portion of his life, and hopes, as he said, at last quietly to end his days. Here,' said the philosophic old mariner, in half English, half Dutch idiom of his but to the following purport- here I am happy, and want for nothing. Whenever I feel at all out of sorts, I walk up to yonder cliff, or headland; I look at the boisterous waves buffeting some unfortunate bark-such, say I to myself, was my former position in life. I then turn round, and look at my humble cottage in this quiet and sheltered kloof-on my sons working in the field or garden -on my daughter, with her little ones prattling around-on my two cows and my flock of goats. Mutinous lubber!' I then invariably exclaim, what more dost thou want?' And, not being able to answer this question, I always return happy and contented to my pipe and sunny seat here on the steep.' The yarn of this ancient mariner may help wiser men how to draw from the old year a moral that shall profit and cheer the new. I think it is Cowper who says that England is a fit residence for a gentleman only six months of the year. The poet had never known the extasy that is born of " a southerly wind and a cloudy sky." He had read, haply, of the dews of Castaly, but had no experience of that celestial drizzle (like a Scotch mist tepified) which sheds what gods call ambrosial odour, and men call scent, upon the Ides of November. Helicon is not "Six Hills, neither is the Whissendine "the Pierian Spring." From Michaelmas to Easter-from Lady Day to "the morrow of All Souls"-Great Britain is the sole spot upon the round earth where "sporting" finds "a local habitation and a name;" the term even is without an equivalent in any tongue or language save our own. As it is not in courtly companies or the saloons of nobles that the character and tastes of a people are to be sought, so neither is it at Newmarket or Melton that our national passion for "sporting" is to be canvassed and understood. The studs of Goodwood and Burghley-of Quorndon Hall and Brixworth-gorgeous appliances of the "pomp and circumstance" of the turf and the chase though they be-do not bespeak the popular sponteneity" for racing and woodcraft with half such miraculous organ as the local rendezvous of some rural passage of sport or feat of friendly strife. This fact is not quoted as a trait of national superiority. It is simply put forth as a touchstone of our idiosyncracy-as a corroborative instance, showing that England is a fit residence for her sons the whole year round. I would establish the bias of our insular instinct. I would identify this intense propensity for manly pastimes and exercises. To this end I take leave to state a case or two, the very burlesque of which will plead like a mathematical demonstration for the truth of my hypothesis. 66 66 It came to pass that I was set down for a while in a district more remarkable for the spirit with which the natives cultivated field sports than a natural aptitude for the pursuit-a locality, in short, which stood within the threshold of what is known as a scratch country." It could boast its pack of foxhounds all ship-shape, huntsman and whips in pink, fixtures in Bell's Life, and a subscription by no means to be sneezed at, in the provincial bank. This is one side of the medal-the reverse is emblematic of "the slows." Runs were rare-kills "few and far between:" as wide apart, perhaps, as the festival of Guy Fawkes and Shrovetide; and the fields for the most part consisted of the shopocracy of the county town. The farmers didn't hunt: either because they had no calling that way, or because they were of the same kidney as the "Agricolæ prisci, fortes, parvoque beati," spoken of by Horace, or because they couldn't afford it. The gentry |