in its varied society; and an admission to one of her parties gave the fortunate visitor an immediate footing amongst the local fashionables whom I now had an opportunity of studying in their natural element. The mass appeared chiefly to consist of persons--both ladies and gentlemen-considerably past the middle period of life, and with few exceptions, suffering from some bodily infirmity, the concealment of which afforded them a never-failing occupation. The gradations of rank, too, seemed to be known and observed with a degree of exactitude totally unprecedented in my previous experience of the law of precedence ; although Burke or De Brett would hardly have recognized the claim to distinction put forward by the wife of a captain on half-pay, or the widow of a minor-canon. There were, however, two grand exceptions to the general run of commoners constituting this assemblage, in the persons of a dowager viscountess, and an earl's younger son; and the deference with which poor old deaf Lady Ricketts was listened to, and the Honourable Lionel Legerdemain todied, were instructive proofs of the respect in which England still holds the illustrious ornaments of her aristocracy. The sufferings of poor Lady Ricketts from intermittent paralysis prevented her being anything more than a passive recipient of the general homage she commanded ; but Mr. Legerdemain's popularity did him, indeed, the greatest credit, inasmuch as there must have been sone admirable though hidden virtues concealed beneath so unprepossessing an exterior, to render that short, thin, dirty, and vulgarlooking man the centre of an admiring crowd. Badly dressed, not half washed, and more than half drunk, he was relating to a listening circle that day's run with the staghounds, the chief merit of the performance being the fact that he had ridden nearly a hundred miles on the road, exclusive of hunting, since breakfast and this feat, perhaps, in a measure accounted for his seedy appearance.

“ 'Main, my boy !” said a good-looking, fresh-coloured young gentleman, who seemed to derive much reflected honour from the familiar abbreviative, “ 'Main, my fine fellow! what did you do to-day with “ The Buck ?"

“Ran ten minutes, and broke my horse's back," replies 'Main, who is evidently a man of few words.

“ I'll mount you to-morrow with the Duke,” good-naturedly suggests the pitying inquirer, who is basking in that time of life when the loss of a horse is the greatest conceivable affliction.

“ Wouldn't give a thank-you for foxhunting !" is the somewhat uncourteous reply, which, however, elicits a burst of applause from the attendant circle ; and the young one, rather disconcerted, walks off to pay his court to Mrs. Bagshot, whilst 'Main confidentially whispers to a red-faced Irishman, with whom he seems most intimate, that "he shall go and smoke a weed at Joe's, and try for a drain, as this thing's mortal slow,” and the honourable himself “curious thirsty.” The baffled young gentleman who rejoices in the high-sounding appellation of Constantine, joined to the less ambitious patronymic of Slopes, is rather a favourite amongst the Bath ladies, being tolerably well-off, always exceedingly correct in dress, of fresh colour and curly hair, with a guileless expression of countenance, reminding one irresistibly of a sheep, and is extremely well received as he edges his way amongst sofas and ottomans to Mrs. Bagshot's side. Oh! Kate! Kate!--still as great a flirt as ever! Even in the absence of higher game, to think it worth

your while to waste your artillery upon this harmless boy! Ere he has exchanged three words with you, I can see by the pervous manner in which he shrinks from your eye, by the pinker colour that mounts to his chubby, un-whiskered cheek, as your thrilling tones fall upon his ear, that Constantine Slopes is a “gone 'coon !" The old story, Kate -you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Sport to you, but death to him !” Mr. Slopes, probably for want of anything better to say, hazards a stammering request that “ Mrs. Bagshot will give us a little music ;” and the clergyman's lady, calm, radiant, and collected, sits down to the pianoforte, protected in flanks and rear by two post-captains and a Commander-of-the-Bath, vis-à-vis to a general-officer with one leg, whose infirmity obliges him to remain seated, and assisted by Mr. Constantine Slopes, who hangs over the fair performer, and turns the leaves of her music-book, with an empressement that forcibly reminds me of days not long gone by, when I was as great a fool, as infatuated a victim as that siniple young man. Who shall account for the fascination exercised by some women upon all who approach their sphere? The peculiar power of the rattlesnake, whose eye is said to lure the conscious victim unresistingly to its doom, and the attractive properties possessed by certain ladies, and by them used with equal recklessness and cruelty, are two arrangements of nature which make me a believer in “ Mesmerism ;" and I am convinced that Mrs. Bagshot possessed fully more than her share of the magnetic influence. What else could it have been that, ere she had run her fingers over the keys with her own peculiar touch, half through one of those complicated preludes she executed so brilliantly, drew me irresistibly towards the pianoforte from the other end of the room, and brought me, open-mouthed, to gaze and listen spell-bound by the enchantress, forgetful of the presence of my own legitimate Mrs. Nogo, the proximity of Joe--who, by the way, hated music-and all, but those sounds which bore me back upon the wings of harmony to the shades of Windsor, the green alleys of Virginia Water, the villa at Ascot, and the dreamy follies of the past ?

Then, as if the music, accompanied by the half-reproachful glances shot at me from beneath those long eye-lashes, was not enough, Kate must needs complete the charm, thereto-I acknowledge, incited by the supplication of Mr. Constantine Slopes—by warbling forth one of those plaintive ditties which people, who are not “by way of singing, sometimes execute so beautifully and so touchingly. With just enough accompaniment to melt the tones gradually away; with just enough expression not to mar the plaintive simplicity of the sentiment ; and with looks of pitiful tenderness that might have thawed St. Anthony into a sighing Strephon, and that did make me very uncomfortable, and caused young Constantine Slopes to shake like an aspen-leaf, she drew from the responsive chords a soul-stirring harmony as she poured forth her plaintive wail for

« THE DAYS WHEN WE MET.

“There is mirth in the sunshine, there's peace in the shade,

There's the fragrance of June on the flower ;
There is love in the whisper that steals through the glade
But the sunshine may pale, and the roses may fade,

And the skies may be dark in an hour;
And the heart may grow weary--the brain may forget-
And the loved one be changed since the days when we met.

“ There is morning to hope for when darkness is past,

There's a dawn that shall smile into day;
Though the winter be chill, and unsparing the blast,
Yet the flow'ret shall bloom in its spring-time at last,

And the bird carol forth from the spray.
But the heart hath no morrow, when its sunlight is set,

And its music is hushed since the days when we met.
“ Will you seek for a blossom when the tree is laid low?

Will you look to find life in decay ?
Is there joy in despair ? is there laughter in woe?
Can you ask me to smile through the tear-drops that flow

For the hopes which have faded away?
No! the cheek shall be pale, and the eyelash be wet,

While I mourn all alone for the days when we met." Amidst the applause that succeeded to the “ voice of the charmer," I caught a glance from Mrs. Nogo which somewhat moderated the fervour of my approval, and a peremptory order to “ see about the carriage !" sent me into the dark street to grope up and down for the fly which had brought us, and which, according to agreement, was to be ready to take us back. The interval having been whiled away by the driver in the consumption of exciseable commodities, we were not long on our homeward journey, and were soon arranged for the night in our comfortable dormitory at the “ White Rose."

Shall I confess that as I laid my head on the connubial pillow, the still-present “refrain ” of “ The Days when we Met” was yet ringing in my ears, undrowned by the confidential discussion that took place ere I was suffered to taste repose, relative to the merits and foibles of my old friend Mrs. Bagshot.

(To be continued.)

THE CLOSE OF THE RACING SEASON.

BY THE DRUID.

" Red o'er the Ditch-Mound peers the setting sun,

The line of yellow light dies fast away
That crowned the Eastern copse, and chill and dun

Falls on the Heath the brief November day."

Taking the past racing season as a whole, we should say that it has been decidedly below par ; in fact, it was nearly the end of June before trainers began to be able to take the length of their rivals' horses at all. During April and part of May the ground was so hard that their animals could hardly move on it, and for the next month it was so sticky that they could hardly move in it. The jockeys have been unlucky; and it is odd that Robinson and E. Sharpe have suistained fractures, and that Nat, Charlton, and Wells have been heavily unhorsed. A well-known sporting writer in a daily paper has announced that poor Robinson's thigh has been set four inches short, and lamented

that he did not accept the surgical aid offered him from the metropolis. We fear that the writer in question has not walked the hospitals, or he would have known that the setting of such cases of thigh-fracture is a mere toss-up, and that often after they have been manipulated by the very first surgeons of the day the thigh is found to be “as crooked as a ram's horn,” and many inches too short to boot. In fact, it is said that the very head of the profession once set one six inches short. Alas! that the Wellington of the Turf should be obliged to resign his “ straw jacket" just as the star of the stable is rising again. But to resume. The three-year-old division have carried every thing before them, although their don had to knock under in what may truly be termed the crack race of the season, to wit the Doncaster Cup. As for the “ five-year-olds and upwards,” we have seldom known them weaker in their efforts. Clothworker seems to be quite told out at last, and to be qualified for little more than leather-flapping ; and Elthiron, who has thickened so much that we hardly knew him again, has fought but one good fight, and that over his favourite Derby mile at Liverpool. He will scarcely bear the tartan a fourth time over it, as he is for sale ; and Stafford is castrated, previous to becoming his lordship's park hack, The former little fellow has often saved the credit of the Spigot Lodge stable, which will we fear be at a sadly low ebb next season unless their 1851 foals turn out very differently to what the 1850 ones have donc. Lady Evelyn seems to have recovered from her trance, and to be her old Epsom self again, after passing through a deep ford of troubled waters; but she looks lighter than she was then, and is, to all appearance, not an inch higher. Her nice lengthy make always took our fancy, and she is of a very superior class to the vast majority of Oaks winners. Clincher, who, with health, would have been indubitably the crack three-year-old in 1850, seems to be no worse on his legs than he was last season, but his day must be about over. We do not consider that Voltigeur is by any means a hopeless case. He had great luck in getting Clincher out of the way in his three-year-old season, as, although he is as game as either Kingston or Teddington, he never had a high class turn of speed nor any fondness for mud. It was a very wise step in Earl Zetland to place him, for his final polish for some great handicap, in John Scott's hands ; but still we cannot think that his Lordship's late trainer, Atkinson, managed him far amiss. We are told that the removal in question led to the resignation of this “amateur" (as Pegasus termed him), who had previously got « quite across" with the gentlemen connected with the Aske stable. Still he contrived to win during his short fifteen months' dynasty eleven races, or £2,525; and the style in which he brought Comfit to the post would have done credit to a much older hand. Chief Justice does not seem to mind weight much, and “ he did'nt ought,” as he is just like a largecarcassed hunter in his make; his legs are very dubious, and he walks wider with them, both fore and aft, (we except Lucio's Ascot locomotion), than any animal we ever looked over. Midas has wisely retired with exactly 3,000 guineas as his Turf spoils, to be the sire of an infinite series of Pocket-Beirams.

We believe Teddington to be on the whole, taking speed, endurance, and weight-carrying into consideration, a decidedly better animal than the Flying Dutchman ever was, and we believe he will, if well, hold his own

FF

against Kingston, Stockwell, and all other comers, in the Ascot Vase race. In his two first seasons, the stable considered speed his fortè ; but, although he has successfully affected a distance this season, we still believe that his first love is his best. A 1,000 gs. a-side match between him and Hobbie Noble, over the A.F. (1m. 2f. 24yds.) at Newmarket, next May, at 5lbs. for the year, would be the most brilliant affair on record. None of the companions, whom he lost on the sale day, have prospered much out of the Wiltshire air. It is not one man in a hundred who could keep such a “bizarre ” mare as Aphrodite in form, unless he had had her from the breaker's hands, and Eskrett's experience in these matters has not been very great. So far, Mr. Magennis has only got back 240 gs. out of the 1,560 gs. he gave for her and The Ban. Out of the ten yearlings which Sir Joseph sold, only one (Defiance) has shown any running, and he, owing to the very just prejudice against Old England as a race-horse sire, only fetched 35 gs. Mountain Deer and Black Doctor are, we fancy, the very antipodes of each other : the one a splendid miler, and the other a regular slow " sticker." The latter is a perfect model of a horse to breed from, and we doubt whether that will not be his most profitable sphere in future, unless he gets into the Chester Cup on wonderfully easy terms. Nancy's running is a riddle ; but we fancy that both she and The Confessor are “ loomers.” Newminster we do not believe in, and, as a Malton farmer remarked, when he came out more asleep than awake, at Doncaster, “ Goodwood ’ull tak a vast of forgetting.”

Alcoran is about the handsomest horse among the three-year-olds : lengthy, but rather light in his middle piece. On the flat he is a thorough racer, but either a cranky temper or a faint heart militates against his mounting a hill; and we seldom saw such a resolute bolt as he achieved when asked to finish at Ascot. Hambletonian is a wonderfully nice little fellow, with a lengthy body and short legs ; in fact, his sire, Charles XII., reduced to cob size. Indian Warrior is all muscles, and we have seldom seen a horse, in whom they had been so beautifully developed by training, as his were on the Cesarewitch day. Verily, Bill Stebbings knows a thing or two, and practises it too among the Hambleton Hills. Homebrewed is a very flash sort of animal, and we doubt whether a mile is not rather more than he approves of, while Poodle would not lay back his lop-ears from sheer distress at any distance under two miles and a-half, if that ; and Joe Miller, who is the very image of Coronation in his forehand, is, as all the world knows, possessed of the same texture of windpipe. We do not think that Daniel O'Rourke is grown, to speak of, since he ran his maiden race for the Champagne Stakes. He always seems to us a different style of horse every time we see him. It is odd that the two chesnuts with which Mr. Bowes won the Derby should have been so utterly opposite in their points, and we believe that he has a much greater fancy for “ the great slapping Mundig” sort. We do not expect to see Daniel in a front place often again, as he cannot have much speed on a decently dry day. Leopold has a soft look about him, and, in fact, he only won the Vase by the clever dodge of lying in front throughout “to stop the pace." Although he looked rather big on that day, he had as firm and satinlike coat as Malton ever turned out. Songstress, though her action is expensive, is no mean mare, as Bird-on-the-Wing's running proves ; but