dirge, the most pathetic funeral oration would essay in vain to depict that nothing and inanity it so forcibly illustrates, or to find in language any metaphor so strikingly appropriate to the sad silent reality of the

case.

We would borrow such eloquent silence here. Our old friend and companion, that we have followed through so many turns of Fortune's wheel succumbs at last to the common fate. The High-mettled Racer that we watched and speculated on as a foal-the promising colt, indignant at the first profane touch of the breaker and his bridles, but then gradually coming on to, and gallantly taking his place in the string of horses, for whose association he was born and bred-the High-mettled racer, in a word, that we saw in all the glory of his first race, in the very height of high mettle, has now finished the race of life! Alas! how changed from him,

That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!
Gallant and gay!

Some clever man or other, we forget at this moment who, in giving the outline of a gentleman scoundrel, or some famous scheme connected therewith, finds occasion to remark on the strangeness of the fact of an animal of so noble a nature as the horse contaminating all with whom he comes in contact. This observation, of course, has its foundation in the once widely-spread idea, that all sportsmen must be cruelty personified, all turfites the living types of rascality, and all coachmen the essence of slang, impudence, and blackguardism. Any such assertion as this fortunately bears upon the face of it too monstrous an absurdity to require much trouble or space in controverting it. Is the fox-hunter, who is as true and constant in his attachment to his horse, as the Arab is to his-is this "country sportsman,' as you term him in something like contempt, apt to be less humane, less liberal, less open to the calls of charity, than the sober citizen who never used a horse, and hardly ever saw one except in a hackney coach? Is the nobleman, because be keeps a race horse, and thus upholds a sport so characteristic of his country, likely for that reason to be more prone to evil than the drawing-room dandy, or "play" room lounger, who confines the sources of his excitement to cards and dice? In a word, is the man who uses the horse for and makes him participate in his pleasures, less likely to be kind and considerate to him than the mere man of business who regards the animal as a machine, and nothing beyond that, for performing such work as he requires of it? Between the sportsman and his horse there is a constant sympathy and reciprocity of good feeling. With the other, his services are received on the hard, dry contract only, of getting the most done at the least outlay.

The career of the High-mettled Racer affords a striking contradiction to this charge of too continual an association with the horse leading to the encouragement or development of vicious propensities—take the item of cruelty more particularly. As a sound maxim, the more a man is of a sportsman, the more he comes in contact with the horse, the more likely is that horse to be well treated. So long as the Hero was in the hands of sportsmen, he was an object of little pity or sympathy:

he might, to be sure, have sunk in rank from the turf to the chase; but as far as actual comfort went, he was as well off as ever. And then, again, to come to the cruelty of this said chase, if the horse could give us vivâ voce evidence, we should find such enormities can be seldom traced to the true sportsman. It is Captain Shabby-Hounde who makes a business not a pleasure of hunting, that punishes his screws so in showing them off; or sweet Mr. Swellington, that, in showing himself off, breaks his horse's heart in his "full tilting" over the heavy. The less real pleasure a man has in a thing, of course the less regard will he have for it. The more ignorant a man is of his horse's powers, the more likely will he be to overmark them. The grand recommendation then of an innate love of field sports is, that it gratifies pleasure while it imparts knowledge; the enjoyment alone is not enough, or in that case the High-mettled Racer might have gracefully ended his history in carrying a lady, instead of only proceeding with it in carrying a huntsman. With the latter his strength was husbanded for further trials; and though he perhaps worked hard, he worked fairly. With Lady Jane he would be patted and petted every time he came round to the door, and then gaily galloped to death on a hard road in a summer's sun.

So long as those about him had a pride in him, the Hero was safe; it was only contempt that led on to cruelty. Remember the importance with which the careful trainer ushered you into his box, and with what an air he stript him for your inspection. "That's the Hero, Sir-he is going to Bath for the Plate to-morrow morning." Was'nt there pride in the man and comfort for the horse at that time? and so on through each change to the road, where the dandy dragsman told a tale and pointed a moral by him regularly to each box and "front row" he had over that ground, ending on each occasion with this self-satisfactory challenge: " And yet only look at him now, poor old fellow! he is as good and as well off as ever he was in his life." And so he was; it only being when, as is too often the case with man and horse, he was forced to harder work that he was worse paid. In the words of the lamented author of "Humanity to Brutes,' "When we descend to a lower grade of society, then instances of cruelty multiply upon us. The animal necessarily of less price has lost much of his former strength and power; but the exactions from him are more unreasonable, and the owner has less character at stake to induce him to spare his worn-out slave." Then is it left with butcher-boys, cabmen, carmen, and the like, to finish what is left, and "bend him on to his fate."

Come it must, sooner or later (and the sooner the better); for though this history, as painted by artist or sung by poet, may be immortal, the horse himself is not. No! down he drops, if not for the first, for nearly the last time from sheer exhaustion, brought on by those never failing receipts, over-work and under-feeding. The pitying crowd" surrounds him, of course, in a moment there is always one ready for use at the shortest notice in London. We have seen a couple of hundred people on the banks of the Serpentine shivering round a youngster for half an hour, to see him bore a hole in a skate strap; and marked quite as many, or more, crowd in the heat of summer, one over another, on a Piccadilly pavement, to peep at a fellow selling hot unleavened and indigestible bread at a penny a

cake. Well, here they are once more, the idle and hungry of the whole neighbourhood, elbowing each other in all the delight of having an "object" (alas!) in view.

"Cut his traces,' commands a humanity man without a shirt, but with a due sense of the importance of what he is advising.

"Cut his throat you means, thick-head," suggests a still more charitable neighbour.

"Or he'll cut his stick of his-self, if you don't," adds another. The agitated owner receives these orders in any thing but a courteous spirit, by enquiring if he cuts either throat or traces, are his friends good to pay for them?

"Well then, get out of the way, and let the poor creature fetch breath."

"Certainly, Governor, if you wish it; but where's he to fetch it from?"

"Where? Why from where he got that load of bricks to be sure, spoony."

"Ah! then call the Purlice-here's a reg'lar case of prig-for if you got them bricks as he's to get more breath, I'm dd if you must'nt have stole 'em."

"How so?"

"How so? Why only look at him-he'll never fetch any more breath of his own, you may take your oath of that-Call the Purlice." And so, amidst the jeers of the mob and the curses of his last and worst of many owners, the High-mettled Racer lies

"Cold and lifeless, exposed to the view,"

having reached his fate and "got his release by a death in the

streets.

Alas! poor Hero!

Would we could end this paper, and with it our sad eventful history by another application of one of Sterne's beautiful commentaries! To that hulking, heartless ruffian, however, the consolation offered to the owner of the dead ass would be but the severest censure and satire. Mark the passion that plays round what is supposed to be the most expressive feature of the face his mouth; see how he yet grinds the point of his whip between his teeth; and no wonder we hesitate to say, with the sentimental traveller-"Thou hast one comfort, friend, at least, in the loss of thy poor beast; I am sure thou hast been a merciful master to him."

Tradition, no less than "modern instance," asserts it otherwise.