great age to whom all the other deer paid homage, obeying all his behests, and allowing him even to gore to death offenders against his authority. When he reached extreme old age the monarch remained almost entirely by the banks of the lake where the grass grew thickest and greenest, and where he could drink without having to walk far. It is even said that his special followers used to bring him leaves and chewed grass, and waited upon him with undeviating loyalty till the last. A little further south, at Leatherhead, where the "nousling" Mole slips between the trees, and just by the bridge, stands an old inn, now the Running Horse, an ale house, that has for hundreds of years opened its doors to thirsty and dusty travellers. This is where Eleanor Rummynge, the famous ale wife lived, upon whom Skelton once wrote one of his rough and ready satires in jolting verse, not unlike what Rabelais might have written. The enemy of Wolsey describes the old landlady, Footed like a plane, Her huke of Lincoln green- And then, in his reckless steeplechase way, the rough poet sketches Eleanor's gossips with almost Chaucerian breadth and more than Rabelais' coarseness, as they come in with eggs, and wool, and London pins, and rabbit-skins, aud strings of beads, to barter for the dame's ale. There is still extant a curious old wood-cut of ugly, jovial Eleanor holding an ale-pot in either hand, with below the following inscription; When Skelton wore the laurel crown, And here at Leatherhead, where Judge Jeffreys once hid his ugly head when his time of trouble came, the crow feels a duty to give a word to the peculiarities of that strange and weird river, the Mole, whom topographical Drayton describes, in rather an extravagant allegory, as beloved by the Thames : But as they thus in pomp came sporting on the shole, The parents of Master Thames refuse their consent, but the lad is obstinate: But Thames would hardly on; oft turning back to show, The parents, still obdurate, raise hills to shut in their wilful daughter; but all in vain ; Mole is so artful: Mole digs herself a path by working day and night, And underneath the earth for three miles' space doth creep, The river is said to derive its name from the Celtic word melyn, a mill (in Doomsday Book it is noted as turning twenty mills); but it is just as likely that it was first called the Mole from its singular tendency to burrow. It springs from a cluster of little rivulets on the borders of Sussex that meet at Gatwick, in Surrey, and, coursing under the arches of Kinnersley Bridge, push on for the leafy vale of Mickleham. There is an erroneous notion prevalent that the river Mole suddenly dives into the earth, disappears, and re-emerges at a spot further on. Two of the swallows, as they are called, can be seen near the Fridley meadows, and others near the little picturesque roadside inn at Burford Bridge, where Keats wrote the latter part of his Endymion. These swallows, into which the Mole soaks rather than dives, are really occasioned by the river as it swirls round bends of the hills, washing away the mud, sand, and softer strata from under the more resisting and less impressionable chalk. The underground channels continue beneath these cavities. Gossipping Aubrey, a contemporary of the excellent Evelyn,' says that in his time a great pit, thirty feet deep, and with running water at the bottom of it, opened one night near the Mole. Defoe mentions a party of gentlemen damming up this river, the water suddenly sinking all away; the experimenters caught in the dry fields a vast quantity of fish.-All the Year Round. 385 At Highfield Paddocks, on Saturday, September 25th, by Messrs. Tattersall : MR. G. MATHER'S STUD. GS. Euphorbia by Touchwood, out of Lady Abbess by Surplice; served by The Prime Bl f foal by Bel Demonio or The Prime Minister, out of Euphorbia (Lord Rosslyn) Fairy by Hermit, out of La Femme Sage by Gainsborough served by Bel Demonio (Mr Mavor) Bf foal by Bel Demonio, out of Fairy (Mr Goode) 10 007 16 100 Isilia by Newminster, out of Isis by Slane; served by Knowsley (Mr Blenk iron) Ch e foal by Trumpeter, out of Imposture (Marquis of Anglesey) Lilac by Touchwood, out of Tamarisk by Birkenhead; served by The Prime Minister (Mr Dumbleton) Bf foal by The Prime Minister, out of Lilac (Mr Dumbleton) Bf foal by The Prime Minister, out of Lady Grace (Mr W Cox) B e foal by Oulston, out of Marigold (Mr Sadler) Princess Mary by The Prime Minister, out of Shunting by The Ugly Buck; served by Bc foal by Bel Demonio, out of Princess Mary (Mr Brown) ... 20 15 65 10 20 35 35 10 35 Bc foal by The Prime Minister, out of Pimpernel (Mr Simpson) Be foal by Prime Minister, out of Rule Britannia (Mr Simpson) Che foal by Blair Athol, out of Sporting Life (Mr Johnstone) Be foal by The Prime Minister, out of Regina (Mr Johnstone) Bf foal by Bel Demonio, out of Trickish (Mr E Wolfe) Miss Partridge by Vedette, out of Nunnery by Kingston; served by Bel Demonio (Capt 25 15 *** 15 Bf foal by Cranbury, out of Miss Partridge (Captain Baird) ... Second Hand by Stockwell, out of Gaiety by Touchstone; served by Bel Demonio (Mr Roehampton by Ellington, out of Simony by Surplice; served by The Prime Minister (Mr Ransom) Bre by Bel Demonio, out of Flora by Knight of Kars (Mr Beadman) 55 35 TWO-YEAR-OLD. Be by The Prime Minister, out of Papoose by Newminster (Mr Beadman) STALLIONS. The Prime Minister by Melbourne, out of Pantalonade by Pantaloon (Mr Brentnall) By Messrs. Tattersall, at Newmarket in the First October Meeting: Dryad by Cape Flyaway, out of Woodnymph, 3 yrs (Captain James) Goodwood by Rataplan, out of Amanda, 5 yrs (Mr Godding)... Achiever by Citadel, out of Cerintha, 3 yrs (Mr J Abel) At Albert Gate, on Monday, October 4th: 330 100 320 260 210 125 40 780 10 10 20 Dirt Cheap by Orlando, out of Sister to Filius by Venison; covered by Blue Mantle (Mr Stone) Lady Constance by Cotherstone, out of Drogheda by St. Patrick; covered by Blue Truce by Amsterdam, out of Tryst, 2 yrs (Mr Baily) A brown yearling filly by Promised Land, dam by Cotherstone (Mr Lawes) At Newmarket in the Second October Meeting: Coup d'Eclât by Leamington, out of Ursuline, 4 yrs (Mr Simpson) "There he sat, and, as I thought, expounding the law and the prophets, until on drawing a little nearer, I found he was only expatiating on the merits of a brown horse."-BRACEBRIDGE HALL. WAY BILL:- Mems of the Month-Racing: Liverpool and Shrews. bury Meetings-Lord Glasgow's Stallions-Coursing of the Month-Dr. Grant and the Otter-hounds-Billiards-The Surrey Foot Beagles and the Thames Hare and Hounds A RACING season of singular flatness has come to an end; and Voltigeur, whose stock have been making hits of this kind throughout, has dropped in for the last good handicap with Hymen. Among the four-year-olds and upwards Blue Gown has distinguished himself at weight for age, whenever he has come fresh to the post, but the threeyear-olds have been a sorry lot. The Middle Park sifted the two-yearolds to a nicety, but still we have seen nothing among them half the race-horse, to our eye, that Stanley is, and so we believe it will be proved in practice. Ely's stock were very few, and did not do much ; King John's did nearly everything of a kind that was asked of them; Lord Clifden's earned a right for a further trial; and Blair Athol's made little way. Next season we shall see the Gladiateur two-yearolds, the Duke and Savernake yearlings, and The Earl and Lord Lyon foals. Sir Joseph Hawley's vigour in descending on his assailants and listening to no treaty, has astonished them not a little. It will serve to correct that facile habit of attributing fraud to everybody, which too many writers possess; and it is rather fine to note how pompously some, who have been foremost in that line of business, and do not happen to be caught now, declaim on its evils, and abet Sir Joseph. The most gratifying event of the month has been the announcement that the Eaton yellow jacket and black cap which the present Marquis's grandsire made so famous with Touchstone, Launcelot, Satirist, and a score of others at John Scott's or in private, is coming out once more. No one loved the sport so much as the racing Marquis. He would stay at Doncaster a week before and a week after the races, just to be on the scene of the contests and enjoy the pleasures of anticipation and retrospection. The Eaton paddocks have turned out a Derby, an Oaks, and three St. Leger winners already, and we trust that they have not lost the patent. The Ring have been draining the racing-cup to its dregs as usual. The November meetings add as little to the prestige of racing, as Mr. Boucicault does to boating, when the retired prize-fighter Sam Boker trains the Oxford crew on a bench. Well may Oxford men hate the very name of "Formosa!" Last November was marked by the death of the Marquis of Hastings. This year our obituary only tells of Lord Canterbury. That handsome but somewhat effeminate and prematurely worn-out face has been familiar to race-goers for many a year, but he took no rank, so to speak, and was not a member of the Jockey Club, Boating has produced some fine healthy contests, and |