THE BIRTH-DAY PRESENT.

BY AN OXONIAN.

"The brush was secured by Mr. Tilbury (in one of Bencraft's Patent Saddles), who was the first up at the finish. At the request of Mr. Anson, the fox-hunter's trophy was given up by Mr. Tilbury, Mr. Anson expressing his wish to present it to THE PRINCE OF WALES as a birth-day present."

-(From an account of a Day's Sport with Sir J. Cope's Hounds, in the neighbourhood of Windsor Castle.)

I.

In the dawn of his youth, on the day of his birth,
As a few fleeting summers once more brought it round,
A token they chose for that season of mirth,

To mark to their hero the course he was bound.
'Twas an emblem of evil, of hatred, of rancour,
They twined with the spirit so joyous and pure;
The thought of all good but too able to canker,
The ills of his manhood so framed to ensure.*

II.

On occasion as high, though far later in story,
We thought on an offering to make to our heir,
To our hope and our pride-of all Britain the glory-
His labours to lighten, his home to endear.

'Twas an emblem of heartiness, friendship, and health,
Enjoyed in the sport of our island alone;
Imparting of vigour the beauty and wealth,

With the unalloyed pleasure a Spartan might own.

III.

May, then, fortune for once to her promise be true,
Great and lasting the favours to fall from her wand;
May his honours and joys, neither foreign nor few,
Be shared with the people his right will command:
In assurance of this was each valley and crag

With blythe echo fill'd from the eager toned hound;
For this the red brush, with its silver-tipp'd tag,

A place in the plume of his coronet found.

*This is an allusion to Hannibal's birth-day present, when a child; one which it will be remembered was administered in the form of an oath expressive of unceasing enmity to Rome."

IV.

So let hypocrites shudder, and cavillers sneer

At the name of a pastime they never have known;
While their murmurs the hunter can meet with a cheer,
Shall find a response round the foot of the throne.
So secure in the best and the brightest of smiles,
With hand and with heart, wheresoever we go,
Let it be to the Queen and the Prince of the Isles,
Who train up a child to the glad Tally-ho!

LITERATURE.

THE DOMESTICATED ANIMALS OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. BY PROFESSOR LOw. London: Longmans and Co., 1845.-There is a proverb which asserts that a "big book is a great evil." This rule, if rule it be, like every other, has its exception, or perhaps it is the more a rule because it abounds with exceptions, for logic is the most subtle of all learning. Here is a volume of 753 pages royal octavo-to say nothing of upwards of 100 pages of introduction and other matter-the whole of which, with the small remnant of eyesight remaining from a career of editorship during a period of unexampled minuteness of type and unmitigated extent of typograph, we read-and read with pleasure-we hope with profit. The "constant readers" of this our journal will remember the occasion we had to speak with unmixed praise and satisfaction of a work by the same author, entitled " Illustration of the Breeds of the Domesticated Animals of the British Islands." This was a costly publication, albeit not more so than the value received. In his present work Professor Low has added a most elaborate and curious history of the dog. We earnestly recommend the volume before us to all who are concerned in rural pursuits, as well as in rural sports. We wish our space would allow of our transferring to these columns some of the admirable information with which it abounds; but we cannot refrain from quoting the opinion of a practical man, wholly beyond the suspicion of prejudice on the matter he deals with, though a subject which we have constantly brought before the patrons of other most popular and nationally useful of our rural sports-the turf:--"The betting of jockeys and trainers to a vast amount," says Mr. Low, "has now become a system extensive, open, and avowed. It is no longer the restricted and temperate betting which prevailed in former times, on horses on which the masters and employers of these people had an interest; but they must have their books' as regularly as the boldest gambler of the course. Now, here is a system which strikes at the very root of all confidence in the affair of the turf. What! the horses of

sportsmen to be entrusted to a set of avowed gamblers, who may have a direct interest in causing their defeat? What confidence can be placed in a jockey on whose success in a match with a another horse he or his confederates may have thousands depending? Will he win in opposition to an interest so great? Those who believe so must have a higher confidence in the virtues of Newmarket than our knowledge of human nature elsewhere justifies. The first admission on record of a jockey betting on the horse opposed to that which he himself rode, is by the elder Chifney. He lost the race; but he justified himself by saying that he knew the horse he rode was unfit to win. The argument of the jockey is not worth the tassel of his velvet cap; and the principle contended for needs only a little extension to justify any kind of roguery. This very jockey lived to acquire a splendid stud, to build houses, to sport his equipage, and to experience the revolution of fortune's wheel, by dying a beggar. But the training grooms, more trusted still-what can be said of their concern with the gambling speculations, by which their interest and their duty may be placed at variance? What need of their master-key, to guard the troughs from the introduction of the arsenic or the sublimate? or of the live fishes, to show that the water is as pure as their own thoughts? A few orders of the head-groom on the training-ground, a few doses of tincture of Barbadoes aloes, a gentle opiate from the apothecary's shop-all for the health of the horsewill answer every end. Or should these disgraces not be perpetrated, how many are the means by which races may be lost and won. A simple breach of confidence may answer the end. Information may be conveyed sufficient to neutralize the hopes of the confiding employer, and the one 'book' be made square, although the other may become a memorandum of ruin. It were most harsh, most unjust, to say that amongst the training-grooms of our great courses there are not, and have not been, many worthy men as incorruptible as the proudest that can command their services, and the more to be honoured that they are exposed to such corruptions. It is the system which is here in question which places men's interest in opposition to their duty, and leads them into a temptation too strong for human weakness. That it is through the inferior instruments employed that the higher and more guilty agents are enabled to move their machinery of fraud is beyond a question, for how should a race be lost at will if those who ride the horses, or prepare them for the turf, were not implicated?"

This, and much more, does the author urge against the existing system of our turf; and those who live and move (to every place of pleasurable resort-at a lavish expense of course) and have their being by it, know how truly, albeit they may not volunteer the revelation. And yet gentlemen countenance "legs," employ "sporting jockeys," who ride into the ring to bet against their masters horses, literally "with harness on their backs," their saddles strapped around their loins, and comfort "touts;" who, betraying those who gave them free bounty, and whose pockets they pick, are doubly d-d. How long shall these things be?

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON ALMANACK FOR 1846. London:

Illustrated London News Office, 198, Strand. (Price One Shilling!) -There is a fellow who attends the principal race-courses, offering sovereigns for sixpence a-piece; people refuse to deal with him, and call him an impostor. Here is a piece of merchandize that cost several hundreds of pounds selling for twelve pence! How it can be done in an honest way passes the olden understanding. It is a work of art, a work of utility, and a work of elegance-an almanack for the service of 1846, and the embellishment of all succeeding seasons. Such creations are the offspring of an epoch distinguished for the diffusion of a principle that should be called the "Rowland Hill philosophy."

THE ANNUALS FOR NEXT YEAR.

THE KEEPSAKE for 1846. Edited by LADY BLESSINGTON. The Engravings under the superintendence of Mr. Charles Heath. London: Messrs. Longmans and Co.-The Keepsake of this year is a charming New Year's gift; an admirable specimen of English graphic art, and an elegant casket (though, truly, of no great value in itself), in which are enshrined gems of worth, refined trifles, classic pictures of classic regions, and thoughts though not of the depth of the sea, or of the breadth of the empyrium, yet pleasant and graceful enough to glance over by the glow of the winter's evening lamp, and to connect us by kindly associations of sympathy with the gentle authors and authoresses who deck and illustrate the pictorial with so much skill and good-will. It is the actual Book of Beauty, and bears the bell over its rival candidate for popularity. The frontispiece and viguette title are equally beautiful in their several styles: the first is a bold and vigorous delineation of childhood, in the person of the pretty Princess Royal, by Mr. Lucas, and fittingly engraved with that breadth of line so characteristic of Thomson's mode of handling his subjects. The latter by Cox, a delightful imagination of a little architectural building, in a climate such as that of Tempé, where the arrangements are all al fresco. Another and more elaborate work of Mr. D. Cox, is the Fête Champêtre. Besides its fairy grace, it is endowed with that picturesque Dutch minuteness of detail which adds so much enduring interest to a picture of the sort. The provender on the snow-white cloth, relieved by its table of soft verdure, with the happy and familiar grouping of human beings, and the still more serene and lovely landscape that forms the framework of the scene, all these are felicitously combined to gratify the eye and the taste of the artist. To enumerate briefly some few more of the many beautiful engravings we would instance: Olympia (J. W. Wright), as a specimen of womanly beauty, choicely engraved by R. Wallis; The Bell, by Corbould; and a classic scene by the same, entitled Ianthe, both engraved by A. T. Heath; A Rustic Fair, by L. Huskisson, possesses most of the desirable properties of a domestic cabinet picture, clearly engraved by J. B. Allen; The Exchange, a charming engraving, from a scene by Egg; and La Sala di Gran Senata and Cortile Salviati, two perfect gems by Lake Price, especially the former one, in which the lights and shadows are admirably disposed for effect.

HEATH'S BOOK OF BEAUTY: Altogether a misnomer; as far as this volume of 1846 is concerned. There are one or two fair and intellectual countenances on which the eye dwells with pleasure, such as that of the Lady Henrietta Mrs. Arthur J. Lewis, and perhaps that of Mrs. Beresford Taylor. We shall, however, find few to admit that the portraits of the Book of Beauty are anything like veritable samples of the loveliness of the English aristocracy. The drive of Hyde Park on a May-day, and the Italian and French theatres, present so constantly living specimens of glowing beauty; each example of which might be heldas

"The glass of fashion and the mould of form."

When we turn to such a libel on decorum of expression as that of the portrait of Mrs. Young, after Sir W. C. Ross's picture, we cannot but smile and wonder at its admission in such a collection. One of the prettiest gipsy faces of the volume is that of Donna Inez; but there is also too much of meretricious display in the arrangement of costume in this subject of Egg's.

We shall perhaps take another opportunity to speak of the literature of these volumes, which, we may mention here, is above the average of preceding years.

FORGET-ME-NOT, for 1846. London: Published by Ackermann and Co.-A prettily got up annual, with a frontispiece of the value of the whole book. It is "The Reverie," a picture of Drummond's, choicely and delicately engraved by J. Cochran. The transparency of the planets that gleam out of the engraving, as though, indeed, revolving in the living ether, is a remarkable merit. "The Bivouac" is clever, with effects of engraving that attest the superiority of our artists in that line. "Verona" is admirably executed, and there is much of quiet simplicity in the attitude and expression of G. L. Hering's "Sketch from Nature." There are several prose sketches of merit in this unpretending volume. We may instance that of "Sarah Burnett," by the late Mrs. James Grey. Miss Eliza Cook's verses "On the Death of a favourite old Hound," are the best in the book, and especially characteristic of her vigorous manner. "The Last of the M'Carthies," a ballad by S. M., possesses a simplicity far from unpleasing; and "Better than Beauty" is a good song "Guido and Marina," by the late T. Hood, is full of

for music.

feeling.

On the whole the three volumes we have thus cursorily noticed are the most tasteful gifts that could be devised for the first day of the New Year. We trust they may annually recur, to mark one phase of English art-that of producing in a minute space the most startling effects.