EMBELLISHMENTS. SURPLICE, WINNER OF THE DERBY, 1848.-ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY HARRY HALL, OF NEWMARKET; SPORTING INCIDENTS AT HOME AND ABROAD (FROM THE MS. life of the HON. PERCY HAMILTON).—COMMUNICATED TO AND EDITED BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX. LIVERPOOL-WARWICK AND LEAMINGTON SPRING MEETING- BIBURY NORTHAMPTON AND PITCHLEY HUNT CROXTON PARK CATTERICK BRIDGE-EPSOM SPRING MEETING-NEW- B 3 M Dog days begin. 4 T NEWMARKET JULY MEETING 5 W LANCASTER RACES afternoon r 3 51 3 9 39 s 8 17 410 8 h. m. h. m. 1 52 2 19 2 45 3 10 3 30 3 50 4 15 4 35 r 3 52 511 34 4 55 5 15 6 10 59 r 3 54 6 T Old Midsummer D. Henley Reg. s 8 16 7 F Cambridge Term ends 8 S Oxford Term ends 9 5 35 60 711 22 6 20 6 40 s 8 15 811 45 7 5 7 30 Third Sunday after Trinity.r 3 56 9 Morning 10 M Cric.-Kent v. Eng, at Lord's 11 TR.T.Y.C. Match 12 W LIVERPOOL RACES 13 TIPSWICH R. LIV. CUP DAY 14 FODIHAM RACES 15 St. Swithin. 16 7 55 8 20 s 8 13 10 0 10 8 55 9 23 r3 5811 0 37 9 5510 25 8 8 1212 1 811 011 30 r 4 013 1 46 no tide at noon s 8 1014 2 29 0 25 0 50 215 3 19 1 15 1 35 Fourth Sunday after Trinitys 17 M M.C.C. v. Surrey, at Lord's r4 18 T STAMFORD R. Regatta at Hulls 8 19 W NOTTINGHAM RACES r4 8 FRISES 1 55 2 15 afternoon. r 4 4 30 4 50 22 S M.C.C. v. Harrow, at Harrow 26 W GOODWOOD STAKES DAY 28 F 29 S 30 Sixth Sunday after Trinity. 1 45 2 10 8 2 35 2 55 ......... 21 Bridgnorth ......... 21 22 Wenlock 25 25 26 27 28 Newport............ 27 28 Royal York Y.C., at THE RACING IN JUNE. BY CRAVEN. : "The good old times'-all times when old are good- A wider space, a greener field is given To those who play their 'tricks before high heaven.' Have wept enough-for what?-to weep again." In one of the good old morality magazines that in former days catered for the miscellaneous in literature, as more aspiring monthlies and quarterlies do in the present generation, we are told of a certain valetudinarian who was wont to thank God when he had the gout that it was not the stone, and when he suffered from the gravel that he was free from podagra. No doubt he was quoted as an exception to the rule of his time, or angels must have walked among men at a later date than we have authority for supposing. The natural man has certainly not improved within the last thousand centuries or so; and if the moral be, after his kind, a keener, a wiser, or a better, it will be news to us--when we are certified of its authenticity. The fact is, "the further removed, the more finished the picture ;" as the vulgar eye looks at works of art. Nevertheless, "vixere fortes post Agamemnona." There has been, in every modern time, quite as perfect a buffoon in high places as Thersytes ; and the ancient worthy that went about looking for his honest monster with a lantern alight, would very probably have quite as much trouble to find his specimen now-a-day with a gas lamp. But I agree with the author of the "Carmen Seculare," that in this our epoch "A wider space, a greener field is given, To those who play their 'tricks before high heaven.'' Nothing like the railway bubble has been blown up by the popular breath since the scheme was broached for constructing deal boards of sawdust; and if "greener" fields ever existed than those which constitute the materiel of our Derbys and Legers, it must have been in some moral Tempé lost to romance and history. And what of that? "Whatever is, is right." To be sure it is, only you don't see it or you wont. You swear-you reprobate, so you do when your bootmaker seeks to Adonise your instep, or the pine you patronized over night quarrels with your coffee in the morning. Learn to be patient! The mere eel that serves for your "spitch cock" at Greenwich or Blackwall becomes reconciled to being skinned "Patience and patience, hence !-that word was made Well! you are the-oriental solipede of burden; and you fall among the birds of predatory habits. "What business had you there? Pooh! there you are-not how came you there-that is the question. Therefore have patience-patience under your sufferings from the betrayer who will appropriate your substance, or patience with the essayist who will show you how best to issue out of your afflictions. When Bishop Berkeley said, "there was no matter," he was in earnest; though many doubt about his being in the right. When people assure you that there is no matter-to fidget about in the instant position of the turf, they are very probably as serious as was the ingenious diocesan of Cloyne. But that's no reason you should take all they say for gospel. It has been well urged that journalism should go with the times, but not in the capacity of a lead captain. Popular taste.greatly inclines just now towards the pastime of horse-racing, in the popular character of a holiday amusement and a working-day occupation. Well! so let it patronise; but it does not follow that the limner of life should sketch loaded dice as the play things of gentlemen, or the man of honour arm in arm with the ruffian of the ring, without a wry face. There must be wrong in anything that offends the instinct of propriety and convenience. Is it fit or good that the turf should be the rogue's paradise and the simpleton's purgatory? Does the sport of horse-racing profit by being the agent of the knave or the road to ruin of the foolish? Would you have the rules and regulations of the Jockey Club submitted for revision to a committee of the Commons ? Let the policy of the turf as it exists-no matter by whom begot or nurtured-be submitted to a committee of public common sense, and the bane will be waited on by the antidote. This introduction may, peradventure, serve as a hint for the preamble of the bill. It Let us open the June racing with the Imperial Meeting on Ascot Heath. Like all the leading courses in the kingdom, this has been gradually advancing towards perfection during the last few years, both in the arrangements of the ground and the economy of the sport. requires no great exertion of memory to call back the time when it was little better than Hampton is now; with the exception of the Royal Stand, all was as rude and rough as if the site had been the extremity of the Highlands instead of the suburb of a royal residence. And this is speaking of it as a holiday rendezvous. As regarded the turf there was not even a pretence at system; the jockeys weighed as they could, started as they would, the only shadow of order being at the finish. This is no blame to the officials. The horses were started by the royal huntsman. What sort of a school for getting off a field of unruly colts and fillies-to say nothing of the imps which ride half of them-is hunting a pack of stag-hounds? They might as well have appointed the monarch's huntsman coxwain of the frigate on Virginia Water. Here and there a Master of the Stag-hounds lifted up his voice when he saw all at sixes and sevens, but he forgot all about it before he had baptized his soup in the evening. Next season there was a new Master, and he perhaps had an aversion to the turf, and only tolerated Ascot as an excuse for wearing a pair of gold couples, and riding fugleman to the royal cortège. Or it might be that his taste was "all for the sea service;" he was a yachtsman, peradventure, and loved the rib of one of White's craft better than the carcasses of all the racers bred from the Darley |