three horses in, &c., &c. more."

""Tis Greece, but living Greece no

Cheltenham races with their nice scenery and social enjoyment, are pleasanter to see than to read about. The celebrated half-bred Scarrington was first 'favourite for the Cotswold Hunter Stakes, but he could give no 27lbs. to Fantine, a black mare trained by the Holmans on the spot. Weight was, however, evidently no object to her, as 12st. 12lb. did not stop her in the Welter Plate. The bracing air seemed to agree with Mavela a mere outcast of Lord Roseberry's at Stockton, and the one which set the Daily Telegraph off moralizing, and caused his lordship to sell. His lordship gave 400 gs. for her at Doncaster, on the strength of her half-sistership to Livingstone, but Dover could make nothing of her. Now she came out and won three times, and was bought in for 61 gs. at last. "The Essex calves" did not care to walk to the bleak Galleywood Common to see an autumn edition of Chelmsford races. Old Cranbury went as if his head was on fire, and few blood things go faster than a Surplice; and Sophie, favoured in the weights, won the Nursery Handicap very easily. Sir Tatton Sykes only sent up her and Frivolity, and Morphia to Doncaster in 1868, and all three are winners. He sold her dam Bernice by Stockwell to America for 500 gs., which is a pity, seeing that she has thrown another winner, Tramp, late Agrippa. Viscount (who had been specially kept for his Scotch engagements) was in his usual second place at Kelso; Kings Cross received 4lbs. from him and beat him easily, and then gave him 10lbs. and beat him by a neck. Viscountess 6st. 11lbs. was nowhere to her old Edinburgh friend Vintner in the Nursery, whom Osborne by declaring 1lb. over weight, rode at 8st. 4lbs. Everything of Mr. Johnstone's was unlucky at Kelso, and he sent five or six, including Thorwaldsen and Mandrake. Thorwaldsen was beaten off by King's Cross, and Mandrake (who has not had a thorough preparation) could make no fight at all, at only a stone for the two years, with Champagne Charlie, who was running at Bromley a a short time (since. Those who love leather plating had it to their heart's content at West Drayton, where Grimshaw had one mount. Harvester and Cranbury both performed over five flights of hurdles, but with no success, and people seemed keener of betting on the Cambridgeshire than watching the races. The Hereford meeting supplements the now meagre fair, the cattle show, and Mr. Duckham's auction sales, and the sport was as good on the one day as it was weak on the other. Needle Gan, ridden by George Stevens, was very clever over the hurdles on each day, and was the domestic heroine of the piece. People devoted to the apple vintage are not very keen about racing; and their heart of hearts is with the red and white-faced bullocks.

This month has witnessed the deaths of the very head and tail of the racing world-Lord Derby and Ignatius Coyle. The latter had hung on its skirts ever since the famous Running Rein trial, in whose mysteries he was mixed up. Then his name was before the world iu the Alleyne case, and latterly in a Goodwood "difficulty," when he was convicted of picking pockets. However, Lord Palmerston stood his friend, disbelieved the constable, and released him. It might have been well for Earl Derby's fame if he had never been a Premier.

The English nation loved and admired him as a gallant highspirited gentleman, with pluck, and a wealth of English such as few could claim, and which made even "O'Connell" writhe, and style him a "scorpion;" but they smiled at his pretensions to being a statesman. What he might have been if he had ever had a majority of the House, and not had the line dictated to him by an imperious and brilliant first lieutenant, like Mr. D'Israeli, is a different thing. As it was he came into office pledged to curse great Liberal measures, and was only permitted to bless them. Free Trade, Jew Bill, and Reform Bill-it was all the same. Brilliant onslaughts, in which of late years he was almost invariably worsted, were his forte; but he loved fighting as dearly as any of his own black-breasted reds, and polishing off a certain little Whig peer was his delight. Fiery and rash to the last degree, even in his last great speech, he indirectly professed to give the Queen's opinion about the point under discussion!

Dangerous political guide as he might be, he drew his party to him, and his geniality won upon every heart. He led them into difficulty after difficulty, and renounced in office without a struggle the very things he fought for so hard when out of it, as if there was nothing like political principle in the world; but still they followed him without a murmur to the death. No one else could have inspired such loyalty; and hence he may well be mourned. He indeed " drew them with the words of a man. Perhaps no one in the kingdom, despite his pride in his "blue blood," was so universally popular with high and low. Like Lord Palmerston, he understood and sympathized with English tastes, and was quite a king among sportsmen, and adored for his kindness among the Lancashire operatives.

Hunting had no charms for him, but he liked shooting, and racing lay very close to his heart. He loved to sit up all night if a good trial was to come off in the morning at Whitewall, and we never saw him look much happier than when he came to Doncaster in '54, and walked all round the course with his string at their morning exercise. While in office he was very seldom seen on a race-course. That rather tall slack-backed figure in the curled-up hat, and the surtout, with the keen eyes, and the large black stock, and his lorgnette case buckled over his shoulder, was always the life and soul of the stewards's stand. No one, when he was in the vein, would match more keenly after dinner. Horses had been his delight since he was quite a lad at the Holywell Hunt; but until he was upwards of forty and went into the Upper House, the Derby string did little more than go the Lancashire and Cheshire rounds of meetings. After that John Scott and Ithuriel began a new order of things, and Tim Forshaw kept furnishing a goodly supply of the raw material. It was hard lines to be second for each of the great races with Canezou, Toxophilite, and Meteora, and only once to win the Oaks with Iris. De Clare and Fazzoletto both failed him when it seemed that they had victory in their grasp, and it is probable that the use made of Acrobat in the St. Leger to serve Boiardo, who had beaten him in the trial, deprived his lordship of another St. Leger. Still he won a very considerable amount in stakes, and the result of his sales prove that if he had gone on, his paddocks had not lost their faculty of producing winners. Escalade, the only two-year-old that ever made The Flying Dutchman gallop,

was one of his, and her faint-hearted daughter Sortie was his most successful brood mare, and paid wonderfully when crossed with Stockwell. His lordship loved the Velocipede blood for old Verbena's sake, and would occasionally send a mare to King of Trumps in consequence. Miss Bowe, the dam of his famous roarer Longbow (perhaps the quickest horseunder high weights at 3-of-a-mile that the century has seen), did pretty well for him; but Canezou was not lucky in breeding anything good but Cape Flyaway. She had one of the most muscular but unracing-like colts we ever saw, by Newminster. He was brought to Doncaster to be sold as a two-year-old; but the trainers only shook their heads, and said that he would "fly to pieces like glass." Still a visit to Newminster, which resulted in the 1,000-guinea yearly Inspiration, paid remarkably well. The Cape Flyaway's are all of a clever type, and generally safe to win something. One of them this year, was the most perfect, short-legged hackney we ever set eyes

upon.

At one time it seemed most natural to see his lordship's "black-andwhite cap" borne by a chesnut with a white blaze and legs, as when half the stud was by Veiocipede; but Miss Bowe rather altered that, and bays and browns became much more frequent. Sir Edwin Landseer hit the earl's face and figure very well in a remarkable and, we believe, suppressed sketch called "Protection after the Derby Day." The broken-down chesnut of the piece bore a great similarity to his lordship's horse Ortolano, one of three chesnut two-year-olds which he brought out in '50. Such was his love of the sport, and his unbounded confidence in John Scott, that it is almost a wonder that he could bear to give up, when Cape Flyaway's day was over in '63. The year before that he parted from Doncaster with a £300 gift, for which Tim Whiffler beat Asteroid. Still he could not brook the new set of racing speculators which had arisen everywhere, and it chafed him still more to see that many of "the upper ten" consorted with them, and were quite as greedy and unscrupulous in their pursuit of "good things." They in their turn said that it was equally unaccountable why he should persist in breeding "instruments of gaming" like yearlings. In his last letter, about four months since, he declared for July 1st as the proper day for two-year-olds to begin their toils; but, although he still bred them, he would not join the Jockey Club at Wetherby's, and vote on the question. Perhaps he shrunk in his feeble health from the hot argument which the question was pretty certain to entail. A handicap between limits as to weight was another notion which he endorsed in the same letter, and that not long after the notion had, so to speak, met with so much disfavour in Jockey Club councils. But he was "the noblest Roman of them all." He was not on the turf, so to speak, but still he was keenly watching every move, and a very radiant element to the House and the country has been lost by his death. Lord John Russell and Lord Grey are the solitary survivors of the century of portraits in Hayter's "Passing of the Reform Bill," where" the fiery Stanley," glass in eye, is such a conspicuous figure. The Bishop of Brechin, with unmatched vulgarity, or worse, could not actually wait till he was dead before he pressed the Marquis of Salisbury on the notice of Oxford as their next Chancellor. He may think nothing

of the loss, but the world grudged their grand old Earl most bitterly to the grave.

The coursing season commenced on the day after the St. Leger, at Ardrossan, a meeting in which the late Will Nightingale used to take so much delight, and whose livery (grey coat, with blue handkerchief) shows to such advantage on Mr. Borron, as he holds Beacon and Black Cloud in his large picture by Pierce. Smuggler and Knight, both by Liddington, divided the Eglinton St. Leger with King Hal by Gun-boat, whose stock show some promise; and Telegram by Ewesdale, from Tamar, was beaten in his third course. The Champion Collar, with £30 added was divided between the owners of Financier by Brigadier and Dunkeld, a son of Campbell's old Coodareena. Betsy for Ever beat Wee Robert in the decider for the Leinster St. Leger, for which Mr. A. Bennett judged. At the Scottish National Bab-at-the-Bowster made her appearance for the Douglas Cup, and ran an undecided (in consequence of a dog getting loose) with Lord Lurgan's Master Gulliver. Gleaner, Financier, Gear Gatherer, and Corrie Lea (by Mr. Sharpe's old dog Tak Tent), all went down before her, and the last named had the best of the pace to the hare. Bab was sadly gruelled in her last course but one, and how she " came again" was miraculous. It has been her usual luck to meet with very good hares, and she sticks to them like a burr. Thirteen out of the fifty-two St. Leger puppies were by Cauld Kail (on whom there has been a great run, average dog as he was), and three of them, Lord Binning's Balista, Bacchanal, and Bright Eyes from Bergamot were left in the last four. Mr. Simpson's Sandridge by Portland proved a very awkward customer, and he and Balista divided the stake at last. The weather was very bad at Brampton, and the secretary (Mr. Hyslop) in high force, as he won the Cup with Confidence by Cauld Kail, and his Covet by High Idea divided the Plate with Mr. Carruthers's Canzonette by Cauld Kail.

The Burton-on-Trent Club throve, and the Anglesea family are quite its backbone. The Derby Stakes was won by the Bagman by Earnest, a very fast and clever dog, for which £100 was said to be refused. There are Waterloo prospects there. Three of Earl Stair's Cauld Kails, Swivel, Starboard, and Supplement, stood to the last at the Wigtownshire Club meeting, and three more of his lordship's kennel for the Galloway Stakes. We may well deplore the accident which has befallen so good a courser. There were sixty-seven left in the Oaks and forty-four in the Derby, at Ashdown Park, which "had its ain again." Surprize won four courses, and then died absolutely suffocated. Such was the heat that she could not draw her breath at all when she was taken up after the course; but she fought hard for life. Lord H. Paget's Pink Pearl (own sister to The Bagman), and Mr. Power's Pauline divided the Oaks; both of them are young coursers, and new to the ground. Old Trovatore ran badly, and, in fact, her day is quite over (though we may, perhaps, hope to see Lobelia again); but her daughter Margaret by Banjo won three courses, and then was beaten by Pink Pearl. Those who vow that first impregnations affect the produce ever after, do not seem to have much ground for their belief. At all events Margaret ran like a greyhound, and her dam's

first litter of puppies were by a colly dog. Mr. Randell won the Craven Cup, with Royal Bride, and richly he deserved it. No man devotes himself with such tact and perseverance to the drawing up of coursing rules and the general support of the pastime, which gains strength every year.

The meet at Dirleton on the second day was once more on that lovely green, with the sun shining over head on the 9th of October, just as if it were high summer. Throughout the meeting there was rather a lack of "fur," but two great potato fields at Fenton Barns were friends in need. Sandridge was apparently none the worse for his Scottish National efforts, and Glencoe (by Gunboat from Granite), Belshazzar, and Star all went down before him; then he had a bye, and then Gather-In was drawn unconditionally. Sandridge beat them all in the most hollow style, and coursers began to "project their souls" into February and the Waterloo Cup. Since "the good old days," when the hospitable" Scottish Hen Wife" was lady of the manor, and her son, the owner of the property, was alive, the Carse of Gowrie Club has gone down. One of its most active members, John White, of Lynedoch (the owner of Duncan Gray), is dead. There are seventy members, but they do not seem so staunch. Other clubs have also interfered with the fixture, and so "Willie Wilson" had only a slender card to read after dinner. Hares were also rather scarce, and the beating might have been better. Wee Flower by Cauld Kail won the Gowrie Stakes. Brougham and Whinfell meeting was quite in heart again. No less than 120 dined at the Crown, Eamont Bridge, where the drawing took place; the three stakes filled, and a little one as well, and seventy-eight trials (54 of them in one field) were run off before half-past four on the first day. Bubbly Jock and Baccarat, a son and daughter of old Bagott, both ran and won three courses between them; old Belle of the Village was beaten in the second round of the Brougham Cup (which was won by the three cup dog Jolly Green), but she had the Havershaff Stakes as a solace. Mr. Blackstock ran Beningborough by Beckford from Belle of the Cottage, but she was beaten by another Beckford in the Whinfell Stakes.

At the South Lancashire (Open), 44 out of 67 accepted for the Derby, and 27 out of 40 for the Oaks. The former was won by Jerry by Blaze, and the latter was divided between Morning Star, and Bed of Stone by Portland, who is also the sire of Sandridge. Better Still one of the Rather Improved-Tirzah litter won one course, and had a very short and unlucky course with Morning Star. We expect great things of this litter, which was the last Mr. Thompson ever had. It fell to the lot of Bed of Stone to run off the Silver Vase with Jerry, whom she licked into fits. A cleverer bitch puppy has not been out this year. The Scarisbrick Cup was full of mediocrities, and Duty Repealed beat Fire Brigade at last. Merry Heart by Calabaroono, a blood which has not been doing much lately, divided the Crossen Stakes with Bridgewater; and Mr. Borron's Blue Jacket won the Southport Stakes, beating in the third round Bill of Portland (own brother to Bed of Stone). Out of sixteen in the Clermont Cup at the County Louth Club meeting, no less than six were Lord Lurgan's. In the second round, three out of the five, which were left standing, went down, one