life-must be lumbago! President very seedy-legs as big as a gatepost-don't feed. Groom says he wants condition-don't know what he means. Gave a long figure-condition included in the warranty. What rascals horse-dealers are! Lots of snow, so rode Happy-go-lucky half-way to cover, and home again. I think there must be something aristocratic in the turn-out: heard a chawbacon say to his friend, Bill, that's a real swell!'-very intelligent the lower orders in Northamptonshire.

Friday 7th.-Althorp: lots of foxes; killed one of them too. "Saturday 8th.-Mem. : always to see that the boots washes his hands before he helps me on with my leathers. Capital day in Badby Wood! that rascally fox wanted to come out once or twice, but we managed to keep him in there till three o'clock in the afternoon, and then he went into a drain. Just the thing for Drayman! I wonder whether he's what they call a high-blower: he made such a jolly row in the mud. Haven't had a jump yet since I left the riding-school at Knightsbridge. Who the dickens is Old Ard? the huntsman's always calling to him, and I've never seen him yet. Uncommon good-looking set of fellows they are with the P; but they don't say much -p'raps they're shy; but they'll soon know me. One of 'em asked me to-day if I saw the varmint? There he goes!' said he- Yes,' said I, on a very neat horse too--and a regular varmint he is!' but he only laughed. I'm sure if ever there was a varmint, 'tis that young lawyer with sham leathers and a charley. Just found out that he meant the fox. Quite a foreign language this hunting lingo."

Yes, Binks, you are a very good fellow, but a complete snob, not because you are related to the Bagman (for you know you are, though you deny it), but because you are pretending to be what you are not, and to do what you never were meant to do. What a precious mess you've made of it! What a wretched set of screws you have got together! What expectations you have formed of dinners, and civilities, from men who, if they said "good morning" on a cloudy day in November, would stare with the most supreme indifference at you in June! And when you get into a run, how you will wish yourself in the ridingschool at Knightsbridge! But after all, if you are determined to be a sportsman, we will give you some lessons in dressing, and riding, and behaviour.

What's this story about the "boots and his dirty hands!" Oh! I know as well as if I had been present-you dreamt the early part of the night of your leather breeches, &c., &c., and by the light of the moon you watched them, on the back of your chair, until bare daylight. You have no proper servant, and for the sake of being a swell you have left the neighbourhood of Burton-crescent to live in a public. Well, you ordered your breeches to be made to fit well, to exhibit your leg to the best advantage, in fact you ordered them to be tight: all wrong: you were unaccustomed to leathers, and in the dim morning's light, or rather darkness, managed to put them on hind side before-here was a miserable retrospect, to be looking back in the body whilst your mind was for progressing-a divided duty. You sent for the boots (the chambermaid was out of the question) to assist you in your struggles to free yourself from Buck-master's bondage-that pun, by-the-bye, is new, and would have made Theodore Hook's fortune early in life. The

boots came; violent were thy struggles, O Binks, and you emerged at last from your obscurity a camelopard. This is beginning under bad auspices. Besides, as you just observed, you have a new language to learn-you know nothing about it. Fancy mistaking a respectable young gentleman for "the varmint," only because he wears imitation leathers and a charley—and a lawyer too!-take care, Binks. I don't mean to defend that young man from any little scurrilities on his personal appearance in which you may please to indulge, but I do say that your ignorance in this case far exceeds his. And then you were at Lilbourne gorse, too, on that great, ugly, ragged-hipped Sugarplum. Lilbourne of all places in the world!-what would you have done if they had found? It's a mercy for you in that crowd that they did'nt ; into that brook you must have gone, for you are just in that blessed state of ignorance that you have not even discretion, that better part of valour. Don't go vapouring about this country about what you mean to do, who you'll cut down, and how you mean to ride; don't stare at that scarlet coat of yours, and go fingering your leathers every five minutes, but pay for them, and be thankful that the sharp frosts and very dry weather have saved you hitherto from breaking your neck, and given you some little chance of learning your business.

You were not out with Mr. Drake when he had that excellent run from Eyton through Wappenham and Bucknills; in fact, right into Lord Southampton's country-you didn't see how cleverly he gave his hounds the little assistance they wanted, because his huntsman was not up at the check. No, how should you? the first three fields would have broken your heart or your neck. Binks, these midland counties want a long apprenticeship, and good horses, and hands in the right place as well as the hearts. And when that hard frost set in on the 15th, I only hope Binks went up to Hunter-street in time to save himself from being in Queer-street with Mrs. Binks. Somebody has metaphorically told that lady that Binks's horses eat their heads off in frost she devoutly prays that they may, assuming naturally that in that event he must come up to buy some more.

Binks showed with the Warwickshire at Dunchurch, and saw what Leamington produces in the way of sportsmen; we can set him a more worthy example to follow, and as little likely to break his neck. Another extract" Monday, 24th, Preston Capes-Found at Hinton Gorse, the wily animal (bravo, Binks) mizzled (very bad, Binks) at the bottom of the gorse-tremendous buster (only for one field though, Binks, for I was there): three men on the top of one another at one fence by the side of a gate, prime fun! two more at the double out of the field into the road at Charwelton (apt pupil, Binks). How very odd a fellow's legs look when he sticks 'em up out of a ditch, especially if they're rather fat, what the owner calls good legs. How I rattled along the turnpike into D with the second wily animal (not so good that repetition, Binks); and fancy capturing him where we did-oh my eye (very bad, Binks)! all the town came out to look at us. What a prime turn out, to be sure, that is of Lord Southampton's; all the field too, uncommon polite; not so much fun, you know, cos there aint half so

many.

Binks, Binks, now you're committing yourself. So you did go into D with the second fox-very sharp work, too, and the day was

one snatched from the-not the burning, but the frost. There very often is a good scent after frost, and, strange to say, with a light north east wind; this is a matter of pure observation and experience, but it is the experience of very good sportsmen. Prime turn-out strikes me as an unsportsmanlike expression; it sounds much more like the Lord Mayor's coach. I know you mean to be complimentary, and if you would say that the manner in which the men are mounted, and the condition of the hounds and horses meet your approbation, I most cordially agree with you-nothing can be more perfect. Lord Southampton's bitch pack is a perfect model of a pack of foxhounds; and they are not only good to look at, but their performance is beyond all praise: their quickness in cover, and their manner of getting together as they leave the cover, with their uncommon quality of patience in a bad scent, and their pace and nose in a good one, give them rank as one of the best packs of hounds of the present day. Morgan is an excellent huntsman and good horseman, and in the way he is now mounted, and rides to his hounds, is likely to do them justice. The fact is, that the want of rain now (for since I commenced writing it has again ceased), and the very severe frosts we have had, have placed all hounds pretty much on an equality as to sport about here. We have heard of a pretty little gallop from Hillmorten to Crick, and on towards West Haddon, and the country is so beautiful that anything would be acceptable in it; and on Friday last there was a day's sport from Adstone made up of a ring, and a good sharp gallop at the end of the day without a kill. Without listening to anything that that old ass, Binks, has thought worthy of a place in his diary, there has not been a run worth recording since the beginning of the season.

He

I'll tell you where old Binks did go; and what very absurd remarks he made upon the occasion, with some more like him in waiting. went to Brockhall in a sharp frost, and there he stood one mortal hour, like a blockhead, smoking cigars and abusing the hounds and their master. There you sit, about a dozen of you; probably not a professor amongst you, waiting for the hounds: the subscription of the whole of the party amounts to most likely-nothing. Three or four young farmers-not good, wholesome specimens of war prices, like their fathers, but young farming gents; two or three half-graziers, halfbutchers, and not a horse of any value amongst the lot, and yet they sit there talking about the hounds not coming as if some personal injury had been done them. Who with any sense would have taken hounds out of kennel on such a morning? Who, with a horse worth £30, would like to have ridden him with the ground in such a state? One or two gentlemen did go for a little exercise, and returned home again without a thought of hunting: but you, you fellows, who pay nothing towards the legs and feet of a foxhound, have no more mercy on them than on your own long-coated galloways. Only try to get together halfa-dozen couple of heavy-headed, throaty harriers, and you'll have some idea of the care and responsibility of a master of hounds.

But Binks is not a bad sort of fellow and with that ingenuous simplicity of his, one stands a better chance of imparting instruction with success than to one of your very clever, self-conceited gentlemen, who come here with a lot of their own preconceived notions to be knocked out of them. He'll be easier to manage than these, and know more about the hunting in the long run.

To begin then all whom it may concern (if the reader don't like it -if he's sleepy, or critical, or don't want advice, he's very welcome to put the book down) be somewhat measured in your abuse of the weather. If it does not suit you, it does somebody else: besides, you must learn to bear disappointments; patience is a fox-hunter's virtue. You are perfectly welcome to dig your boot-heels into the garden, or to shove your stick through the ice on the road puddles with as much energy as you please, but do not carry your ill-temper into the drawing-room; keep it to yourself. Don't scold your servants, or your wife, if you have one it's ungentlemanly, and it's unjust. Besides, it destroys digestion; and very likely, when you can't hunt, you are reduced to eating, drinking, and sleeping. Some people are in this plight. So never mind if it is frosty, or windy, or dry-make the best of it. True, November is a little early for it to have begun: you could have better spared your horses when they were about three parts done up. But remember what winters we have had the great anti-frost party has had it all its own way. The country gentlemen, the old women, the market gardeners, and the robin redbreasts have had jolly times of it the last two winters: but the opposition must come in sometimes, or we should get quite overbearing.

Look at that pleasant little breakfast table in the suburbs of London. A man and his wife. No one but an Englishwoman looks so happy, and cheerful, and well-dressed at nine o'clock, A.M., and at thirty-five years of age. There she stands, with a great coat and a shawl, whilst her husband swallows his last cup of coffee preparatory to his diurnal drudgery somewhere east of Temple Bar.

"Come, my dear, make haste and finish will be here in a minute."

your coffee ; your omnibus

"Omnibus! oh, I shall walk such a glorious morning as this. Look at the sun; and it's as dry and clean as the middle of summer, without the dust and Mary, dear, if you'll put on your bonnet quickly, I'll take you on my way as far as your mother's, and call for you as I come home to dinner."

If it wasn't for a few frosty days I wonder how often that poor fellow would get a walk with his wife in the winter.

Do you think that red-nosed schoolboy, with a jacket, out of which his hands hang like pendulums, and a comforter of bright scarlet round his throat, does not like frost. Look at his skates. What does he know about your pleasures? He would rather have one fall on the ice than two out hunting; and the former is very effective when it comes. Look at that pretty little woman in a west-end square. She's all smiles; rather a contrast to the gloomy man who stands opposite. "Now, John, dear, it's as hard as a stone. You'll never go down to night why there will be no hunting for a week."

Oh, but it always thaws by twelve o'clock. I must go.' Nonsense, dear; do stay it can't thaw to-morrow. Oh, la! look here; baby's nose is frozen to the window, and she can't get it loose!" This was conclusive, and the little woman was as happy in the frost as a bird in the thaw.

Be patient; don't complain of the weather. Besides, it's getting better, and all the world are not fox-hunters,

December 5th.

TURF PENCILLINGS.

BY THE DRUID.

"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse !"

Turf 1846-51 Statistics-Number of Meetings-Voltigeur-Teddington's MatchColonel Pcel--Sir Joseph Hawley-List of 1851 Winners-Clothworker-Glance at a few other Seniors.

"A glance" of some few hours' duration at the admirable little "bosom friend" annually furnished to the racing world by Mr. Ruff, enables us without farther preface to give our readers a bird's-eye view of the racing season in 1851, Comparing it with the five preceding seasons, we have the following figures:

In the phraseology of the House of Commons and vestry politicians, "these figures speak for themselves;" and we may safely aver that they are as nearly correct as possible. As far as 1851 is concerned, the result shows none of that turf atrophy which Messrs. Close and Alford, and the noble corps of the "respectable regulars," are always harping upon with such genuine delight. For the last two years there has been a steady increase in the number of two-year-olds brought out, but when we consider that no less than 800 blood mares are in "labour and sorrow" with live foals every spring, it seems very remarkable that only three-eighths or so of those foals should have their manes plaited as two-year-olds. There is not any great increase in the numbers of the race-meetings whose fame is recorded in Ruff. In the years 1846-49 they numbered 186, 186, 182, and 184, respectively; while in 1850 they sunk down to 171, but have again risen in 1851 to their old average of 185. Some of these, however, are of a very seedy order. The spirit of match-making is not very vigorous, and of the 64 credited to its account this year, little more than half came to an issue: still, two such affairs as that of Flying Dutchman v. Voltigeur, and Teddington v. Mountain Deer, were enough to kindle it afresh. Somehow or other the Marquis of Exeter and Lord Glasgow seem to be tiring of such an expensive sport, and Captain Rous has therefore very few with whom he may bring his especial talent into play. Voltigeur is to all appearance quite recovered from the effects of his severe match struggle: soon after it he went quite to pieces, and looked a mere wreck of his former self; but under Atkinson's care he has got all his flesh up again, and will, we believe, make his bow to the public for the next Emperor's Vase at Ascot. His old trainer, Hill, has a pension of £1 a-week;