and both fall back into the stream. There is a dissolution of partnership, and then they are happily extricated by the attendant groom on the side from which they started, and are sent home by the peremptory brother, who perhaps recalls, as he rides away, the lines—

"Your sister's drown'd, Laertes!

Drown'd! O, where ?

There is a willow grows ascaunt a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream."

The chase goes on, and by a propitious deflection, comes within reach of the Bridge Brigade, who rejoin their long-lost brothers with eager animation, and ride, like heroes, over a few small fences and fields. connected by convenient gates. Then they are confronted by a most disgusting obstacle, in the shape of a thick high hedge, with a big dyke on the other side, and as they watch the huntsman in the air, and hear him call to his follower to "put on steam," they remember how precious their lives are to the community in general, and to their own family in particular, and they resolve that no motives of selfish enjoyment shall imperil that, which is so essential to the happiness of their country and their kin. They go, "this side up, with care," to the gates.

The incidents of the chase, the many accidents by flood and field, are infinite in their variety, now dangerous, and now grotesque. I have known two instances, in which riders dismounted, once by falls, and once in their joint attempts to unfasten a gate,

have changed horses, and not discovered their mistake until their return home, suggesting to my memory an occurrence yet more abnormal. A gentleman had a horse named "Angelo," in compliment to his proficiency in the art of fencing, and having ridden him for several seasons, he sold him, wishing to purchase a younger and more capable steed. Two years afterwards, being present at a sale at Tattersall's, he was much pleased with one of the animals trotted out in the yard, bid for, and bought him. Returning to the country with his new purchase, he was met at the station by his stud-groom, who, as soon as the box was opened, and its occupant appeared, raised his hands in amazement, and exclaimed, "Why it's old Hangelo!" The comment upon this transaction was irresistible, that although the buyer had been somewhat wanting in discrimination when he selected his stranger, he had nevertheless entertained an Angel

unawares.

Sometimes there is more of the demon than the angel in the temper of the horse, and there is an example in a refractory steed, who, having dislodged an officer by falling at a fence, rose and rushed across the field, charged the brother of his owner, as he was jumping over the boundary hedge, and having rolled him and his horse into the adjoining field, galloped off into the wilderness. He was out all night, and when a servant announced next morning, "They've found the horse, sir," the proprietor only said, "Have they? I'm sorry to hear it."

I must leave this fascinating subject, on which I expatiated in a previous record of my "Memories." It is fascinating because this sport is the bravest, manliest, healthiest, and most social of all, and because it is the only one which has not been attainted by the defilements of the money-grubber, the gambler, and the snob.

It may, of course, of course, like all other recreations and pursuits, be the idol of pleasure, instead of the "servant of duty;" it may monopolize time and thought and work, which we owe not only to others, but to Him Who giveth all. There are monomaniacs on horseback as well as on foot. There are thoroughbred steeds, on which brave knights and true may witch the world with noble horsemanship, and there are donkeys for dunces, and painted wooden hobbies for fools. They are poor company, those young men of stable mind, that is, who mind stables only, with their hair always cut like convicts, and their lean legs-suggestive of the Colonial Bishop, of whom it was said, "That he was liable to be apprehended by the police as a vagabond, having no visible means of support"-in ill-made gaiters of drab. They have but one song, which they sing da capo—

"The lesson that I give,

If any one holds cheap, he'll

Find he cannot live

Or die with decent people.

Your business, if old,

Young, or children in your frocks, is

In one short precept told,

Which is, preserve the foxes.

The way to cure all woe,

And baffle Fortune's shocks, is
Singing Tally-ho,

And preserving foxes."

And I have known men, and very pleasant fellows too, to whose mind almost everything suggested some phase of hunting. A noble lord, a master of hounds, attended a great ecclesiastical function, and when the procession of priests was straggling all over the churchyard, as was the custom in those days, and some were going altogether in a wrong direction, he approached a clergyman, who occasionally hunted with his pack, and whispered in his ear, "I say, Cox, there's three couple and a half running heel yonder. Can't you send a whip, one of those chaps with the wands, and turn 'em?" Assheton Smith, after hearing the first sermon of young Mr. Dyson, the son of the Rector of Tedworth, put his hand approvingly on his back as he came out of church, and said, "Well done, Frank-you shall ride Rory O'More on Thursday!"

XXII.

HORSES AND RACING.

Their beauty and their use- -Horsemen on either side of the Atlantic-Cavaliers and cowboys-Dr. Johnson with the Brighton Harriers-Breeding and testing horses-Racing in itself harmless, but abused and degraded-Americans at Epsom-Worse men than Welshers.

THE horse is the most beautiful and the most useful of all the animals. Deer may be more ornamental and appropriate to a park, and they have this claim to preference, that it may be said of them, as the widowed shark of his wife, when, after the manner of sharks, he ate her, "She was charming when alive, and she's really very nice now she's dead," but they are, except in Lapland, ignavum pecus; they carry no riders, they bear no burdens, nor can they be compared, the stag with the thoroughbred sire, or the doe and her fawn with the brood mare and her foal. The horse is the handsomest and the most helpful of all our speechless friends. He is not only the chief performer in that which I have just maintained to be the best of all sports, but wherever there is work to be done, he brings us his patient strength,