this forthcoming race that saved me the month in bed, and the doctor's bill. I had been sweating, and physicking, to prepare for it, which checked inflammation, and I was soon well, but always kept one eye open, afterwards, at a bullfinch, or, indeed, on most other occasions. The two most break-neck falls I ever had, were from Spring; one was in the middle of the first field, after breaking cover with the Mostyn hounds, by a hollow drain breaking in under him, in a furrow, as I was going at full speed, to get alongside the pack. How many times we rolled over I cannot pretend to say; but when the momentum was exhausted, I found Spring on his back, and myself lying amongst his legs; the bridle reins almost all broken. Sir Thomas Mostyn was coming up the same furrow, behind me, and declared he never saw such a dangerous fall; but it was in a piece of deep plough. The second fall he gave me, was a near go for Spring's neck, as well as my own, in a splitter from out of the Warwickshire Vale, to Epwell White House, in which he particularly distinguished himself. But the fall was thus: Mr. Morant got first up to four rails, bushed with thorns ; and coming up to them, somewhat obliquely, was enabled to see what was on the other side, and that they must be taken at twice. His horse refused them; but Spring, who never refused anything, went at them, neither knowing nor caring what was on the other side, and I could see nothing but the rails, because I came to them in a straight line. But lo, and behold! what should there be but, first, a space of ground, the width of a cross-country road, and, beyond that, a newly cut, and very deep drain, within a few inches of the further edge of which did Spring's fore legs find themselves. The rebound was something awful, and, to mend the matter, I was bareheaded at the time, having lost my hat at the second fence. How we escaped, I know not; but neither was hurt; and Spring soon jumped out of the drain. But, I shall never forget an old shepherd's exclamation, who chanced to stand near the place at the time. "Why, sure-ly, you gentlemen must be mad, to think 'of ven'tring your lives in this way. What be ye made on? I can't think." The fall I had in Scotland, five years back, from Lord Kintore's capital old mare, the Duchess, when she made my left breast the fulcrum to rise from, after she was down, has caused me to feel uncomfortable when I see a woman riding to hounds. As Black Will said of a brother coachman (a very good one, but renowned for larking), "he now begins to see danger," so, of late years, I have thought a little more of tumbling, which the many bad accidents, it has been my lot to witness, has had something to do with. I have before stated, that I have been three times ridden over, owing to my horse falling; and seeing the Squire's sad accident, from the same cause, did not mend the matter; and it has been in the rush, at the start, that I have since been most shy of a fall. Let your imagination loose, Mr. Editor, and fancy yourself in the position in which I once found myself:-on my back, on a headland, and good fifteen stone of human flesh, in addition to a huge chestnut gelding, equal to fifty stone more, in the act of alighting on the top of me! This happened in Warwickshire, with Lord Middleton's hounds; and, strange to say, all the harm done was, tattered garments, a broken spur, and a bruised thigh. Mr. Hawkes leaped clean over me, à la Leicestershire, which I thought little of, for I had no time to think; and "Ned Tommes, of Southam," so called, to distinguish him from the Warwick hero of that name, rode over me, at full speed, and our two selves, and our two horses, were all rolling on the ground together. It is astonishing how little regard some people shew for the lives or limbs of their brother sportsmen, when hounds are running hard. "Pray, sir, don't jump upon me," said I, to a gentleman at the end of a run, with Sir Bellingham Graham, in the Atherstone country, when the horses were getting weak; and, before my horse had recovered his footing, from a down-hill fence, I saw him and his horse, up in the air, behind me. "I beg your pardon," was his reply, "but my horse has carried me so well.' "He has," said I, "but that is no reason for your riding over me." The greatest number of falls I ever remember to have had in one run, was three; in Shropshire, with Mr. Mytton's hounds; but we were in so soft a country, that fractures, or concussions, were out of the question; and the only danger was, of being smothered. I have always taken the precaution of keeping my head back, in a fall, and putting my arms out, thinking little of a fractured collar bone, compared with a lick on the head. As to being thrown off a horse, when sober, that has never happened to me, since the time I sold the Hero to Mr. Vennor, when a standing-jumping pony, I purchased of Mr. Ladbroke's keeper, at Idlicote, with the Hero's money, sent me flying over his head, at a down hill fence. But I have, occasionally, had a struggle for it. For example,-when I went to Cheltenham, to have a fortnight with Lord Segrave, the winter before I left England, I had the riding of the late Mr. Meyrick's stud. "What horse shall I send to cover for you, in the morning?" said his groom, on the evening of my arrival. "Which you please," was my answer. "Do you mind a bit of a kicker?" inquired the man. Of course, I said "no." But, of all the kickers I ever heard of, this horse was the worst. I had no sooner mounted him, than he began; and, after breaking both stirrup leathers (new ones of Wilson's), and a third, lent me by the landlord of Guiting Inn, where we met, I gave him up, and rode my hack. I tried him in all paces, and he kicked equally in all, leaping about three feet from the ground, at every kick. I have heard a great deal of riding without stirrups, but no man in England could have sat three of this horse's kicks, without their aid; and my breaking three leathers, in succession, bears me out in the assertion. Mr. Meyrick was obliged to give him up, which was a pity, as he was well-bred, and a very fine goer; but, this having been the first day of his being with hounds that season, of course made him worse; and it appeared to me, to have been the skirts of the coat that disturbed him. I was also near making a pretty exhibition in Yorkshire. I was riding Sir Bellingham Graham's blue horse, with Sir Tatton Sykes's hounds, and put him rather quickly at a fence, which I thought he would have taken at twice. Instead of that, he took it all at a fly; and I rode half the way across the next field, fairly astride his neck, but, at last, got back into the saddle. I did not believe it had been in the power of any horse thus to have disturbed my seat; but, if I had fallen, I think I should have broken my neck, as the horse started off at full speed as soon as he found where he had got me. I never had but one fall in riding a race; neither was I ever near having another, except when my brother 'gentleman-jockey tried to make me safe, by throwing me over the bank, at Doberan, in Germany. The fall I got was at Hambledon, after I had beaten nine horses for the cup, when the one I rode took me into the crowd, and landed me on the top of a cart. A cut over the eye, and the loss of some blood, was all the harm done. The foregoing statement will shew, that it is possible to enjoy the pleasure of hunting, at no very great expense. The following twentythree horses, it appears, realized rather more than 120 guineas profit, on each horse; and several others would shew a good face, if I could recollect the particulars relating to them; but many of them having been sold by barter, or exchange more properly speaking, that is impossible. Let them, then, be placed against such (not many) as went over the left shoulder. N.B. Balance in favour of horses sold, 2,807 guineas, or £3,000, minus a mere trifle, to say nothing of nearly £200 more by Morris Dancer and Spring. THERE is an old axiom "never look a gift horse in the mouth; the origin of which is supposed to have been a story of a country bumpkin gaping, with wonder, at a new gift in the shape of a steed, and finding himself minus the organ of smelling. We are, however, inclined to believe the above version (which we have read in print) to be a mere fiction, and that the saying is simply a piece of advice, which, in common parlance, means, "that a gift cannot cost you much." Now we are about to give a practical illustration of the saying, proving, by "a modern instance," the fallacy of this "old wise saw.' It is now exactly three springs ago, that, in looking over the racing stud of (as they say in parliamentary language) a near and dear relative, we observed a most promising-looking two-year-old colt, by St. Patrick out of Gulistan. The pedigree would have satisfied even Arabian horsedealers, who study, more than those of any other nation, to secure the purity of the race, and consider their favourite horses, the Koshlani (bred by the Bedoweens in the northern desert), as sprung from the breed of Solomon. But to the pedigree, it was as follows (vide" General Stud-book”) : Bay colt by St. Patrick, winner of the St. Leger in 1820, and sire of Rubini, Birdcatcher, Pickpocket, Shillelagh, Saintfoin, and St. Francis, out of Gulistan; Gulistan by Whalebone, winner of the Derby in 1810, and sire of Caroline, winner of the Oaks in 1820, Lapdog, winner of the Derby in 1826, and Spaniel, winner of the Derby in 1831, out of Gulnare, winner of the Oaks in 1827; Gulnare by Smolensko, winner of the Derby in 1813; her dam, Medora, winner of the Oaks in 1814, by Selim-Sir Harry, winner of the Derby in 1798, Volunteer, Herod, Blank.-One St. Leger, five Derbys, and three Oaks in the family. Few things are sought after with greater avidity, and attended with less success, than a thorough knowledge of the shape and action of the horse. All pretend to a little smattering on the subject, a pretension for which the majority pay pretty dearly, proving the truth of an old and trite proverb, "that a little learning is a dangerous thing." Milton (not the poet), as the wags call him, he of the mews, not muse, once remarked, on being asked how all the bad horses are got rid of," that if Providence sent bad horses, there were always customers provided accordingly ;"-a fact which daily experience will prove. As a general proposition, I had been informed, in early life, that the proportion of a well-formed horse ought to be a perfect square, that is to say, he should be as high from the withers to the ground as he is long; but, with this dogma in my head, I did not always bear in mind, that even in this proportion he may either be a short-backed horse or a long one, from the position of the shoulders, and the length of the hip to the croup-bone. Thus, with an upright shoulder and a short croup, the back will, of necessity, be long, while, on the contrary, if the shoulders be backward, and the hip be ribbed home, the back will be short. How often I have experienced the fallacy of this square system, I will not stop to mention. Suffice it to say that, in the case of my St. Patrick colt, it was fully realized. After measuring him, I somewhat ostentatiously remarked to a friend that his symmetry was perfect : a knowing shake of the head, which, like Lord Burleigh's in the Critic, meant a great deal, was accompanied by the observation, "that he thought the shoulder blades were rayther perpendicular, and the fore-legs stood a little under :" I, of course, in rejoinder, advanced the fallacious remark, common even among horsemen, that "it is all nonsense about shape and make, for they go in all forms." "See too," exclaimed I, "what a neat, light, and well-formed head." Another Burleigh shake. "Well, you'll admit his hind-quarters are good," said I, somewhat piqued at my honest friend's opinion. "Granted," replied he; "just as they should be; thigh, broad and muscular; hocks, broad and flat." "Approbation from such a censor," replied I, "is praise indeed," quoting, at the same time, Virgil's description of a colt, and still fancying my young one came quite up to it: "Continuo pecoris generosi pullus in arvis, "A period of three years" (as the modern play-bills say) is now supposed to have elapsed, during which time the colt had been living in clover-at grass: bay colt, five-year-old, thorough-bred, that had never done a day's work, sounded magnificent, and I looked upon myself as the probable owner of the neatest hack in the world. As the season approached, I gave orders that the young horse should be taken up, and sent to the barracks of the Royal Horse Guards (Blues), there to be "broken in" by that excellent horseman, and right worthy fellow, the riding-master of the finest corps in Her Majesty's service. The horse arrived, and, with the greatest anxiety, I ordered him to be paraded in watering order; it was then, and not till then, I remembered my friend's opinion, "that his shoulders were rayther perpendicular," and that I discovered all the evils of the grazing system. Instead of the glossy-coated, firm-crested, bright-eyed creature that my imagination had pictured, bounding over the turf like a thing of air, I saw a Smike-like looking animal, with dingy skin, flabby neck, dull eye, and languid look, shewing that he had been subject to " all the ills that (horse) flesh is heir to.' The well-known adage that "like begets like" was never less strongly exemplified than in the present instance. I thought of the beauty of his sire-the tutelar saint of ould Ireland;-of Gulistan,— of Whalebone,-of Gulnare. Where was the likeness? Echo answered, where? for the unworthy scion did not partake of one of the good qualities of his parents. "What's to be done with him," I exclaimed? A council of three was formed. "Shoot him," replied one, "though he's hardly worth the powder and ball." "Present him to Her Majesty's kennels," cried a second. "Send him to Tattersall's," said another: this latter advice I adopted; and, on the following Monday, among the |