Leoline" pre deal to learn, and no little to unlearn. The opera of " sents a libretto remarkable for excessive stupidity, gigantic blundering, and great nonsense. It is the most unmitigated rubbish we have ever had the dreadful misfortune to listen to. From beginning to end it presents the most dreary series of unrelieved dulness" 'long drawn out" -a constant succession of vile and atrocious balderbash grates most inharmoniously upon the ear. Whoever the wicked perpetrator of such unredeemed and arrant nonsense may be, we cannot pronounce upon him a more severe sentence than to compel him to sit out the performance of his own asinine production. To make this "slow" affair a thousand times more tedious, the management endeavours to realize the notice contained in the bills that "two years are supposed to elapse between the acts." Why docs Mr. Weiss persist in perseveringly pointing his arm like a pump handle? Surely he cannot be anxious to throw cold water upon a weak work, in which he sustains so able a part ? The mention of pumps reminds us of the chorus, who will, in spite of everything, entertain-not the audience—but different ideas about time and melody; the unpleasant consequence is a disastrous infliction of shouting, screeching, holloaing, bellowing, and braying, to a degree positively alarming to cars polite,' if not destructive to the "sweet voices" of industrious supernumeraries. 66 The ADELPHI, through the instrumentality of Mr. Charles Manby, has undergone a complete change. The decorations impart an improved air much to be commended. SADLER'S WELLS and the MARYLEBONE we hope to be enabled to reach and report progress ere our next number sees the light. The POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION is strong in inventions, amongst which may be mentioned the intricate movements of the lace machinery. Gutta Percha has full justice at the hands of Dr. Bachoffner, who expatiates learnedly on its proper and efficacious application. Before bringing our notes to a close, omission must not be made of the commencement, on the 3rd inst., of the Promenade Concerts at DRURY LANE ; a house which Mons. Jullien has exerted himself to make worthy of general patronage, as contributing largely to the Public Amusements of the Metropolis. STATE OF THE ODDS, &c. DEATH OF JOHN SHEPHERD, THE JOCKEY.-This veteran rider, considered one of the best of his day, died lately at Norton, near Malton. He was born at Cockhill, near Moor Monkton, on the 9th of October, 1765, and was brought up in the stables of Mr. John Tesseyman, at Moor Monkton. He was engaged by the Rev. Mr. Goodriche, the Hon. Richard Lumley Saville (afterwards sixth Earl of Scarborough), Sir M. M. Sykes, Bart.; Lord Foley, Henry Peirse, Esq.; Sir F. Standish, &c., &c. Those acquainted with the turf some thirty or forty years ago will recollect him riding Camillus, Magistrate, Prime Minister, Sir Malagigi, Rosetta, Rosanne, Reveller, Lisette, Scancalaldi, Epperston, Cambyses, Consul, &c. His first appearance in the saddle was in the ever-to-be-remembered race between Pacolet and Parlington in 1784, riding Dusty Miller. He was the first person who had been in the receipt of a pension from the "Bentinck Benevolent Fund," putting in his claim either as a jockey or trainer, having had the horses of the sixth Earl of Scarborough for several years under his care at Langton Wold. SALE OF BLOOD STOCK.-In the Second October Meeting Lady Sale, stinted to Plenipotentiary, for 22 gs.; a yearling colt by John o'Gaunt, out of Odille, for 80 gs.; and a yearling colt by John o'Gaunt, out of Minaret, for 160 gs. In the Houghton Meeting the following lots from Lord Strathmore's stud:-The Swallow, 200 gs.; Telegraph, 50 gs.; Gabbler, 59 gs.; Legerdemain, 45 gs.; and St. Leger, 25 gs. The Earl of Caledon and Frederick Barne, Esq., have been elected members of the Jockey Club. The Jockey Club have determined that, for the future, when a sweepstakes has closed, and the number of subscribers is afterwards reduced by death to two, the winner of that race shall be considered the winner of a sweepstakes. So that the "reduced to a match" goes out of date and use. The Derby betting, though playing but second fiddle to the autumn handicaps and other now decided events, has not been without interest and influence on the three or four to which it has chiefly been confined. These are the public performers of the month, beginning with Tadmor, whose further success has brought him up to within a shade or so of being as good a favourite as the Dutchman. There is every reason for this too, for the returns of his races read quite as well as those of the northern light; better they hardly could be. Close, again, on the quarter of Colonel Peel's horse comes the at length appreciated Honeycomb, beating Elthiron and Oquetos (strongly fancied previous to the race) in a canter for the Prendergast, and backed for every shilling "the talent" can find the heart and the pocket to lay against him. These repeated defeats of Lord Eglinton's "second horse" have sent him, for a time at least, out of the market, though we expect Elthiron may shortly again have a line of his own in our monthly table. Escalade, on the strength of very easy race, has been brought into the Derby estimates, as well as occupying all attention at present for the Oaks; while of "the remainder," Osterley and Old Dan Tucker look like "staying," if not improving, on their "last advices"-Tiresome's defeat by the former of course acting to his prejudice. EMBELLISHMENTS. THE STEEPLE CHASE-PLATE IV.-" THE GREY BEATS ANYTHING" SPORTING INCIDENTS AT HOME AND ABROAD (FROM THE MS. LIFE OF THE HON. PERCY HAMILTON).-COMMUNICATED TO AND EDITED BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX 347 HUNTING IN WESTERN TEXAS, AND A VISIT TO SAN ANTONIO DE BEJAR IN 1843.-BY A TRAVELLER DRAFTS FROM "THE BADMINTON."-BY OXONIAN. SKETCHES OF THE HEYTHROP COUNTRY.-BY LATITAT WENLOCK-NEWPORT-LEOMINSTER- BRIGHTON S 3 51 9 Morning 7 20 7 50 7 51 10 0 48 8 30 9 5 s 3 5011 2 3 9 4010 20 4M WINMARLEIGH COURSING MEET. 5T HORNBY PARK COURSING MEET. 6W 7T RIDGEWAY COURSING MEETING r 7 5312 3 21 10 5511 25 8F 9S s 3 5013 4 4111 55 notide r 7 5514 5 59 0 25 0 50 s 3 49 F r 7 58 16 10 Second Sunday in Advent 16 S Cambridge Term ends r 8 018 7 49 s 3 4919 9 1 3 45 4 7 4 30 4 55 5 15 5 40 s 3 4923 0 25 7 50 8 20 r 8 424 1 29 8 55 9 25 M. s 3 51 25 2 3310 010 35 r 8 626 3 3511 1011 40 8 3 5127 4 36 notide 0 5 r8 728 5 36 0 30 0 50 1 10 1 30 1 50 2 10 s 3 54 1 5 8 2 30 2 45 r8 826 6 3 5 3 20 s 3 56 3 7 9 3 40 3 55 r8 8 4 8 16 4 10 4 30 s 3 57 5 9 24 4 50 55 31 S First Sunday after Christmas r 8 8 610 35 5 30 5 50 THE RACING SEASON OF 'FORTY-EIGHT. BY CRAVEN. "A Scotchman is thinking about term-day; or, if easy upon that head, about hell in the next world." SIR WALTER SCOTT. The propensity with which the author of Waverley charges his countrymen is no longer likely to be confined to the north of Tweed, whatever it might have been when the passage prefixed to this paper was written. Merry England is being brought up in the school of Heraclitus-not that John Bull is fed on grass, indeed, like the ascetic of Ephesus, but that his beef and beer, his venison and claret, are being turned to gall and bitterness. What has come o'er the spirit of the land? To what end are our blessings to become as the fruits of the Dead Sea? . . . . My reflections took this view of our social characteristics as I lately passed the details of our great national sport in review before "my mind's eye." They were associated with the events of a year unparalleled in the history of the world. They, too, had had their crosses the whole human communion had been upset the turf with the "legs" uppermost. The topsy-turvy of polities was no business of mine, however not so the complexion of the sweet courtesies. A general decay of national hilarity-a substitution of "faces that would compliment a funeral" for "wreathed smiles"-a tendency to extract gain from everything-furnished matter for grave thought. That racing should not have its changes is as little to be desired as expected. That it should alter for the worse, is for it to fall short of the character of the times a revolution" from gay to grave" appeared to me a step in this direction. With the reader's leave, we will canvass the convenience of substituting mourning for "motley," and selecting the costume of our menus plaisirs from a " mitigated melancholy" warehouse. The popular taste has grown triste by degrees, and a peculiar class of our popular literature was the food on which it fed fat its fantasies, if not the seed whence this lackadaisical harvest sprung. Poets! Beaux esprits! Essayists! what would you be at? Caterers for our feast of reason, "shall there be no more cakes and ale?" I open at hazard a work by the Comus of the day-a composition which may claim place as a leading specimen of the popular humour. An isolated passage can hardly convey a just idea of a writer's style or thought, but it may illustrate the tone of his production: the extract tells its own story....." So there came one morning and sunshine, and all the world got up and set about its various works and pleasures with the exception of Old who was not to fight with fortune, or to hope or scheme any more; but to go and take up a quiet and utterly unknown residence in a churchyard at Brompton, by the side of his old wife. Now this undertaker's vein does not by any means harmonize with the implied contract between the reader and author of a volume of fun and frolie, to say nothing of the philosophy, which is vile both in a natural دو |