the year of grace 1847. It will be as well to begin with the financial proposition which had its origin in that occasion-I allude to the all-important settling-day for the Derby. This, according to the decree of the committee for managing the affairs of Tattersall's, was for the future to be the Monday next following the Epsom meeting, instead of Tuesday, as heretofore. Had the proposal been for the Wednesday, or for the Monday week next ensuing, it would no doubt have found many supporters; but being for a forestalling of payments, of course it was negatived. The rumours which were current in town as to a movement anent the Port Stakes, run for in the Craven week, produced no overt act on the part of the high tribunal applicable to such cases. At all events, the Jockey Club made no sign in reference to that untoward event. Of the tokens that were manifest, the chief were the fortunes, or rather the reverses, of the great public favourites for the great public races--the Derby and Oaks. Early in March, Planet began to show prominently in the Derby betting, for which event he subsequently became first favourite. On his defeat for the Two Thousand he came down with a run, though it was notorious that when he went for that race he was in anything but his proper form. The policy as regarded his popularity was bad; and his treatment when he fell into disfavour was worse. He never ought to have been at the price he attained: it was surely unwise, however, to send him to the right-about so absolutely for losing a badly-run race at a time when he was unfit to start for it. The status in quo of the Derby market horses will very probably be essentially affected by events in course of decision when this sheet is passing through the press. The meeting at Chester will either throw a light on coming events, or cast a shadow upon them and the hopes that were linked with their results. We saw at Newmarket how little the winter had done for Epirote; we are anxious for an opportunity of canvassing what it may have accomplished for Van Tromp. The Dee Stakes perhaps may not be the best of trials for the great Surrey race, seeing that the course is a short one, not a mile and a quarter; but it is a criterion of one sort or other, and when a horse runs for a race, the public have an opportunity of ascertaining something about his condition-for example, whether he be lame or sound, in work or kept in a bandbox. Between the publication of this article and Epsom races, many and important alterations will take place in the list of animals backed and to be backed for their chief event. I cannot regard the present state of the odds as wholesome; the field ought to be better security than any three, yet three have been backed against it, for such are the odds when three horses are backed at 5 to 1 against each. At this writing the market is undoubtedly in favour of the fielders, whatever turn the operations on the Roodee may give to it.

The Oaks comes still more unequivocally into this category. It is always an accident when a mare is brought out fit, quite in her true form, between May-day and Michaelmas. For this reason, I cannot see why so much account was taken of the defeat of Slander for the Thousand Guineas Stakes. Her two-year-old promise was very

* Since this paragraph was in type, we have had a new first favourite for the Derby.-ED.

the Houns

good no doubt, and her three-year-old performances may yet be in keeping with it. Mr. Payne's filly was no mean antagonist, but the lesson those who mark, and thus learn, read in the race was thisthat it was altogether a very moderate business, and by no means typical of first-class quality in its field.

The First Spring Meeting, then-brim-full of interest as it was— was not distinguished for any very extraordinary flavour in the draughts with which the popular thirst was slaked. Indeed, the season's young stock, as far as we have had experience of it, justifies the belief that we shall have a fair average year, but not that it will be distinguished in the annals of the turf for its flying phenomena.

"ALL ON THE DOWNS."

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY H. DESVIGNES.

BY ONE OF THE FOREMOST FLIGHT.

No doubt the people who publish this print will flatter themselves—— till next month, anyhow-it is one of the finest they ever produced; it is a way they have got into, I observe, just like a child with toys, women with men, or men with horses. The fellow, too, whoever he is, who designed or drew it, is quite as probably congratulating himself that, in both choice and effect, he has taken the cream complete of his subject. At any rate, I am sure the chap who calls himself the Editor, after he had bowed and begged for "the honour of a few lines from my pen on so congenial a theme," put it down as a matter of course that I meant soft-soaping the whole concern, on once obtaining my promise that he should have the few lines. If such was his idea, I must beg leave at once to undeceive him. To me his "On the Downs" affair looks almost as slow as coursing, bottomfishing, boat-sailing, or, to give the palm to the joke of the month, that slowest of all slow inventions, the fast-day.

Hunting, after all, has a good many draw-backs-that's a fact. Bad foxes or no foxes at all, scent again too often on the same terms, snobs of masters, fools for huntsmen, and scratch packs for your subscription, are not inviting items to consider of, much more encounter. Still, far worse than all or any of these are the fields,"the mobs and masses of people who crowd and swagger and jostle against one another till some never-to-be-sufficiently-thanked yawner shakes them off like a gale of wind would an orchard of apples. These hundreds and thousands certainly are an infernal nuisance and clog to enjoyment of every kind, and in none do they show out so strong or presume so dreadfully as in coming to meet hounds. Far be it from me to hint the slightest possible disrespect or injury to so noble a pastime; but yet I must say that you will see more "would-be," backed by sheer funking, in half-an-hour with hounds, than you could in a day's march elsewhere. "Melody spoke to it, by -!" you'll hear a man cry out, with all that seriousness and importance with which Griff Lloyd used to

echo some such indisputable challenge. "Melody speaks to it!" and when you think nothing under three ribs or a couple of legs broke would keep him one moment more from the side of his Melody, he turns clean away, and rattles three-quarters of a mile round to avoid a place that one would imagine in the ardour of his heart he never could have seen. This of itself shows what a wholesale humbug hunting too often is made. With common, unsophisticated citizens it must, more or less, imply heroism; while, in point of fact, it might as fairly be associated with right-down, rank cowardice. I have seen men--"good tall men," too, as Falstaff calls them-who would seem to live for hounds and horses, and yet had no more heart to cross a country with than a Shetland pony has stride.

The gods be praised! there is still one thing that keeps these crowds of pretenders from being the insufferables they otherwise soon would be; and that, in one word, is the fencing. How it puts the proper stamp and rank on those who will and can and those who won't and can't go! Talk of the herald's order of precedence! I mean to affirm that a good big, boggy-banked brook will do more in that way in two minutes than all the college of them put together would in two months. Surely then, good Mr. Editor, it is a most monstrous idea to suppose a first-flight man to fall in love with such a subject as this. I know the common-place conventionalism you would have one utter on such an occasion-the plain-sailing, straight-a-head, streaming, boundless-expanse character you would gradually encourage into the finest thing under the sun. That's all very well to talk about; but only look at it as it really is-look at it with the eye and feeling of "one of the foremost flight!" "In my mind's eye, Horatio," I picture the odi profanum brightening up and clapping to their astounded steeds as they emerge "all on the downs," with not a blackthorn or bit of timber to be seen for miles. How they bend their backs and pull together their nags, and cram along with an air of truth and determination that seems to say, "What's to stop me, I should like to know?" What, indeed! and what then become of the nerve and pluck of a man who can go along anywhere? What pleasure can he have when the Westminster-boynot half a bull-dog, mind, when he should be-shoots by you on the thorough-bred runaway pony, and that bit of a dealer, little more of a leg, and supposed to be farmer, sweet Mr. Screwdriver, squares his arms and comes alongside on the herring-gutted, sour-headed, curbyhocked beast he is qualifying for the Hunters' Stakes?" By the living Jingo!" as Lady Blarney swears it, I have often wished at such a time that the crack of one's whip might have the power of Harlequin's wand, and six feet of wall or twenty of water be raised at a moment's notice. Then you'd have at a glance all the pretence and tom-foolery of this open, on-the-downs sort of work, as the shirkers ran up and down looking for a weak place in the wall or shallow one in the brook. Then you might draft your entry with a vengeance, as little "Twine-me-a-bower," with we won't say who on her back, fixed her head, went full bat at her point, and bade the craning crew of them a long good-bye.

Fencing is to hunting what champagne is to eating-gives it a dash and a relish. Your present subject, I must consequently re