the finest collections of books to be found in his day, but it is fitted up in the strictest sense of the term as a work-room-that is to say, it has but three articles of furniture: Sir Walter's desk—a small writing table, a plain arm-chair covered with black leather, and a companion chair made from the oak of the house of Rob Royston, the scene of the betrayal of Wallace by Menteith; and here, in this quiet little ingle nook of his library, we can still picture the Ariosto of the North, in his green velvet coat and plaid trousers, with his vast pile of forehead, his deep grey eyes, and that smile of gentle enthusiasm which gleams out upon us in Phillips's portrait, with Maida at his feet and his staghounds asleep upon the hearthrug, throwing off his morning task of "Woodstock "-can still hear the "dashing trot" of his pen over the paper, till, with a jerk of his hand, he brings his work to a close with the characteristic flourish which marks all his MSS., and lays down the wand by which he had held three generations of readers spell-bound under the glamour of his genius, without, as he said with a flush of pride, writing a single line to unsettle any man's faith, or to corrupt any man's principle, or a single line which on his death-bed he should wish to blot.

CHARLES PEBODY.

are essentially and practically a sporting nation : fond of sports and pastimes. Our daughters are fair; our sons are brave; and racing seems to be recovering the vigour of the time when royalty patronised

the Turf earnestly and heartily. The taste for breeding, rearing, and buying good horses seems in the ascendant, the great stakes being more valuable than ever. Yearlings are fetching almost fabulous prices, notwithstanding all the ailments that horseflesh is heir to. Still we cannot be blind to the fact that, although the keeping of race-horses forms a pleasant pastime, it has, unfortunately, become of late years subservient to the over-weening desire of getting money, influenced by sordid motives and notions highly detrimental to the best interests of the Turf, and contrary to the honest intentions of the Jockey Club, who have long interested themselves to procure the best horses for competition. Perhaps the finest trial ground in the world is Newmarket. It has none of the bustle of our great race meetings. It is the private property of the Jockey Club, who are omnipotent on its precincts, which they rent of the Duke of Portland. Gentlemen and blacklegs can be equally warned off the course if they do not conduct themselves and their transactions in a satisfactory manner, and instances have been known of even our sporting writers being made amenable to Newmarket laws. The town of Newmarket is picturesquely situate under the Cambridgeshire hills, on the verge of a vast area of down or heath land, dotted with fir plantations or emaciated oaken strips struggling for existence from the flinty, chalky soil. A narrow line of chalk road is seen for miles running over the hills, hedged in by a vast Roman ditch, or Devil's Dyke, and ornamented with rustic sign-posts, directing the wayfarer to its purlieus on market days. There is a fine old ruined palace which belonged to Charles II., with its grounds and racing stables. The whole town is interspersed with racing stables, from one end to the other, with their yards, paddocks, and double gates. The "Rutland Arms" and the "White Hart" are hostelries of much note during the race meetings. Over a vast expanse of fen country, from the Bury and Limekiln Hills, beaming out in the horizon stands Ely Cathedral, with its venerable towers, a landmark for miles around.

Dreary and bleak as the heath is, it gladdens the heart of the courser and the racing man. The whistle of the plover is heard, and the cry of the curlew, as she sweeps over the plain, heightens the solitude of the place. The old hare "forms" in the cart-rut, as there is no enemy to oppose her, as in our western woody districts. You can see from one mile-stone to another with the naked eye, and a long line of telegraph-wires and posts extending from Cambridge to Newmarket.

It is the July meeting. The July and the Chesterfield Stakes are run off on the last half of the Bunbury Mile. It is the prettiest summer racecourse in the kingdom. It is on the extreme side of the heath from Newmarket, verging on the London and Cambridge turnpike roads, on the other side of the ditch which stretches away three miles or more towards the Beacon Course, which is four miles in length, but seldom used now, as men like short and more decisive spins. Old-fashioned saddling-stables and battered Stewards' Stands dating from the time of Queen Anne are visible on the different courses -about a dozen in number. The Beacon Course extends from the four-mile stables, through the ditch, and over the flat by the 'bushes, to the New Stand and the Duke's Stand at the top of the town. The Cesarewitch is run over the Swaffham Course, through the ditch, over the flat, to the Grand Stand; while the Cambridgeshire begins at the Newmarket end of the ditch and ends at the Duke's Stand, and the Two Thousand Course is the greater part of the Cambridgeshire; so that there are all sorts of courses, to suit the different ages of the racehorse, which dates from the 1st of June in each year. A colt engaged in the Derby, or a filly in the Oaks, is three years and off at the time of running in May, and if not put into training in the summer or autumn of its second year, as a yearling, and treated kindly, becomes so raw and restless that a young jockey can hardly manage it in a crowd. Hence the necessity of trial horses to lead the gallops, as described by "Asteroid," a fine judge of racing, in the March number of this magazine; and so essential is a good trial horse that a thousand guineas was given for Jack Sheppard to lead Wild Dayrell, who proved anything but a raw rogue by winning the Derby easily, and one of the fastest on record. Horses in their natural state, as descended from fierce, fiery Arabs, are anything but remarkable for timidity, and present a beautiful appearance when seen in their native wilds; instead of flying from men, as deer and hares do, they gallop in compact masses of many hundreds, apparently for the purpose of reconnoitring strangers, and frequently advance within a short distance of the line of march, showing curious signs of astonishment. Everything, then, depends

on early handling and kindness. Vice is generally the exception, not the rule, as well with animals as human beings. The sooner a vicious colt is destroyed the better, as it is a frightfully savage animal at times. Rareyfying horses has proved an absurdity. We saw Cruiser operated upon at the Alhambra, a miserable, stupefied object, afterwards utterly worthless.

The Newmarket Houghton Meeting brings what is generally called the legitimate racing of the year to a close. At this meeting all sorts of handicaps and sweepstakes are run for, and all sorts of conditions imposed. On a fine July morning during the meeting large sales take place opposite the Rooms, or in the paddocks adjoining the town; hosts of sportsmen and sporting men attend them. A country town never looks so well as in a bustle on market day. The "Rutland Arms" asserts its aristocratic influence, whilst the "White Hart," with its regilded emblem, puts in its claims for this eventful week. Landlords become more obsequious, landladies more obliging; chambermaids wear new caps, and postboys new hats; shops are newly painted and decked out with the latest London fashions; and everything betokens a new existence in this otherwise dull town. The railway is laden with fish from the metropolis, the Rooms are lighted up in the evening, dinners arranged; the theatre opens, and the town is placarded from top to bottom with fiery dragons, and wonderful achievements of acrobats and coryphées. Babel-like is the clamour of the betting-ring; racehorses are out on the hills, and racehorse vans are making for the heath. The favourites are walking about the ditch; a phalanx of sportsmen ride up the hill towards the heath; little Joe Rogers, Fordham, Custance, French, and a host of light weights canter up on their hacks and ponies (the smartest in the world), with their pigmy saddles strapped behind their backs, and clothed from head to foot in frieze grey flannel coats, with red, white, and blue caps. They are the neatest and wealthiest jockeys of the day, earning larger salaries than the Prime Minister of England. The scene thickens about one o'clock; flys and carriages laden to the roof take their stands; ladies on horseback-to wit, Ladies Stamford, Hastings, and others attended by their husbands and cavaliers, are cantering in the distance. There is not the dash and danger of Epsom or Hampton. Presently there is a move of horsemen from the Hare Park Plantation towards the ditch, and the July horses are off in a cluster down the descent. They rush by like meteors, a second Balaclava charge, past the old saddling stable, and up the gentle incline. Crack! go the whips-they conquer or die. One of Baron Rothschild's has beaten one of Mr.

Merry's by a neck. The gradual refinement of our manners and customs has so contracted the circle of our real sportsmen, and the new England style so eradicated all former traces of the ancient régime, that the race of fine old English gentlemen is nearly extinct. We look in vain for exploiterers such as the Duke of Queensberry, or the Dukes of York, Grafton, Portland, and Cleveland, Sir Charles Bunbury, Colonel Mellish, or poor George Osbaldeston. We remember the Tattersall's of some thirty years back, when a masquerade could hardly exhibit a more motley group than the habitués of Hyde Park Corner; curricles, tandems, mail phaetons, britzkas, with four posters, led horses, and natty grooms, occupied a great length in Grosvenor Place. Around the magic circle of the old Fox statuette, now removed to Messrs. Tattersall's new premises at Knightsbridge, stood peers and members of Parliament cheek by jowl with jockeys and fighting men. Tom Spring, Ward, Cribb, Molineux, and Langham were then in their zenith. Dandies and exquisites, not forgetting Count d'Orsay, Lord Pembroke, Beau Brummell, and others, mingled in the throng in French braided frock coats, buckskins, and hessian boots, booking the odds or witnessing the sale of some of the finest hunters or harness horses in England; for these were the days of the Four-in hand Club, in the palmy days of coaching. Sir Harry Peyton's greys in brown harness, Lord Sefton's white-legged chestnuts, Annesley's roans, Dolphin's pies, Lord Harborough's fast little browns, Russell's speedy bays, and Fitzroy Stanhope's dark greys. "The star of the racecourse at that time," says "Nimrod," "was the late Colonel Mellish, the cleverest man of his day as regards the science and practice of the Turf. No one could make matches so well, nor could any one excel him in handicapping horses in races (perhaps Admiral Rous and General Peel were his pupils). He was a clever painter, a fine horseman, a brave soldier, a scientific farmer, and an exquisite coachman; but, as his friends said of him, not content with being the second best man of his day, he would be the first, which was fatal to his fame and fortune. It, however, delighted us to see him in public in the meridian of his unequalled popularity, with his neat white hat, his white silk stockings, and pink neckerchief, his blue body coat and nankeen trousers in summer, and black moustache (then a rarity); the like of his style was never witnessed before or since. He drove his barouche himself, drawn by four beautiful milk whites, with two outriders on match horses, ridden in harness bridles; in the rear was his saddle horse groom, leading a thoroughbred hack, and at the Rubbing Post on the