the man that was so well known and so much dreaded by himself and keepers. It remained, however, for me," said my friend, "to make a convert of this gallant captain. After thinning my lord's covers to his heart's content, he took lodgings at the small town of Ch, purposely for the shooting that he expected to get in my covers, which you know are tolerably well stocked and about four miles distant from that place. Fortunately I was apprised of his intentions and performances on the evening after his first day's sport, which he enjoyed on the outskirts without interruption; and knowing his history, I planned a mode of attack against him which proved eminently successful: I wrote him a letter in the following terms :

"Dear Sir,-Having been informed that you paid a visit to my covers yesterday during the absence of myself and keepers, I very much fear that you met with indifferent sport, being unacquainted with the particular spots that the game frequent. If you will do me the favour to let me know on what days you would next like to shoot, I will take care that my keeper shall be in attendance, and that he shall have orders to shew you the best sport of which my covers will admit.

"I have the honour to be your obedient servant,
"GEORGE

"Capt. A.," said my friend, "did not write an answer, but coming over himself and shaking my hand, said energetically, Beat by heaven.'

"Capt. A. was a gentleman, and could not resist courtesy; the charm of his adventure was broken, he renounced the contraband trade, hunted with me for many years, and thus commenced a friendship between us that I trust will only end with the grave."

Not very far to the eastward of the Otter lies a river famous for its trout, called the Axe: thither let the fisherman hie, and, if the weather permit, he may rest assured his labours will meet with success. Should he visit that stream during the season of the fern, web, or small-chafer, he will kill the finest fish in the river by having recourse to its use in the natural state; with a long rod, a short line, and two fern-webs on his hook, tail to tail, he may fill his creel in no time. In fishing with the fern-web too he has another advantage. Sunshine has not the effect of foiling him, and he may drop his fly into holes and on dead water, where he could not venture to throw his artificial fly. I believe the renowned coch-a-bonddu of the Welshman to be made in imitation of the fern-web: the word itself, I am given to understand, implies a red-fly with a black butt, which is exactly descriptive of the fern-web. The Welsh, however, use the coch-a-bonddu at all times of the fishing season, and I am ready to confess that at all times it is a good standard fly. The true coch-abonddu hackles are very difficult to be procured: I have known as much as half-a-guinea given for a cock of the colour for the sole purpose of its feathers. The hackle is of a deep red at the extremities, with a black list running down through the middle from the point to the end thereof. Feathers are dyed to imitate this fly, and in this

form they may be procured at Chevalier's, Bond's, or at any of the great" tackle shops."

I hold a man, however, to be but half entered at the craft who cannot make his own flies; to do this neatly is not only a very amusing accomplishment, but it enables the fisherman, by comparing the colour of his feathers with the natural fly on the river, to tie an artificial one that may suit on any emergency.

THE ASCOT MEETING,

WITH SOME HISTORICAL RECORDS OF EARLY RACING.

BY SARON.

We

If any one had prophesied five-and-twenty years ago, that in the year 1845 thousands and tens of thousands of the liege subjects of the sovereign of Great Britain would have been transported from the metropolis to Slough and Woking in less than half-an-hour by railway, such a prophet would have been looked upon as an impostor, and would scarcely have escaped a berth for life in Bedlam; and yet such has been the case, and we doubt not that in the course of a few years Epsom and Ascot will be brought within an hour's "steam" from London. Goodwood, too, when the line to Chichester is completed, will be accessible to the cockney sportsman, enabling him to run down for the day's racing between breakfast and supper. own that this to our ideas is not "a consummation to be wished for," and in this opinion we shall be borne out by those who witnessed the crush and rush at the Paddington and Slough stations, on the last Cup day at Ascot. Those who, like ourselves, took the rail at the Nine Elms station, and proceeded by the South-Western train as far as Woking, had no cause for complaint; but in another year we have no doubt that the crowd will be equally great on both the lines. In formier days half the fun of the race was the going and returning. It was delightful to quit the sweltering metropolis upon a bright sunny morning in June, and in a well appointed barouche and four, or neatly turned out "drag," to be whirled away at the rate of twelve miles an hour, through a picturesque country, realizing one of those exquisite descriptions of the poet Wordsworth :

-

"View

These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue.

Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms
Green to the very door."

Now one is boxed up in a close carriage, for it is necessary to keep the windows shut, to prevent the sparks and dust intruding-and are shot forth like an arrow from a cross-bow, at an awful rate, amidst a hissing, whizzing, ear-piercing, shrill, sharp noise, something between

an Astley's cat-call in the gallery and the war-whoop of the Ojibeway Indians. Then the smell! instead of the sweet-scenting briar, the balmy bean-field, and the fresh odour of the cottage-side honeysuckle, you have a sort of essence of sulphur, rank oil, and soot. Then as to time in a trip to Ascot, there is little saved, for it was necessary to leave one's home at half-past ten to be in time for the eleven o'clock train, which landed us at Woking at a quarter before twelve, leaving us to post ten or eleven miles to the course. The time thus occupied was three hours, and in the old days of posting Ascot was reached on wheels in that time. Now with horses out of condition one is driven to the rail, and the only consolation now left is to vent one's spleen against this modern innovation, which has destroyed all the former delights of the road. Return we to the Cup-day. The morning was lovely, and as we heard it remarked, "all along with the comet was hot enough to fry a pancake"-probably when the dog-days set in we shall require Macintoshes and fur coats, for such is our English atmosphere, which is as capricious as a coquette-now fair, now cloudy, now bright, now sunshine, now stormy, now smiles, now tears! But, as a matter of course, return we to the-we were about to perpetrate a pun, and say-course:

"We do repent us of our foul design."

and will substitute-heath. Well, the heath was crowded in every part. All sorts of vehicles, from the Whitechapel cart to the aristocratic barouche and four were there, and four dense lines of Carriages extended at least three quarters of a mile down the course. The stand was filled, as was the green in front; and Her Majesty's private stand, as well as those of the Jockey Club and stewards, were, to use a coaching phrase, "booked full outside and in." It would be a curious speculation to ascertain the number of tongues, chickens, and bottles of champagne, that were put "hors de combat" upon that day; and the different repasts, from that of the plebeian "cad” under the carriage to that of the patrician in the well-appointed tent that once was owned by Tippoo Saib, would furnish a good gastronomic article for the periodical literature of the day. See the former, with a robust appetite, and that feeling of hunger which furnishes a sauce that Ude could not exceed, enjoying an inch-and-a-half of "pologny" sausage, a crust of dry bread, a bit of a knuckle of ham, and the remnant of a bottle of "Silery" which the liberality of some "gentleman's gentleman" has thrown him from a drag. "Vashy sort of a stuff this," says he to his comrade: "not to be compared to a glass of 'alf and 'alf." A party in a taxed cart, "under the lee" of the swell" drag," overhear the remark, and extend their bounty to the "cads," in the shape of some bottled stout and scraps of cold beef. "Ah! this is something like!" say the delighted recipients. "Beef, beer, and Old England for ever." Humble as has been this repast, we doubt very much whether any of the Corinthian pillars of the state enjoyed their iced champagne, their claret and cyder cup, their patées de foie gras, their galantines, their ham and chickens, more than did the party we have described. It always reminds one of the story of the alderman (rather Joe Millerish, we own,) who, when

told by a mendicant that he was famishing with hunger, exclaimed, "Lucky dog, I have not felt hungry for the last five years."

There can be no doubt but that the expulsion of the thimbleriggers, and the removal of the gambling-booths, have tended considerably to take away a great deal of the spirit and fun of the racecourse, not that we for a moment wish this pernicious system of robbery to be again resorted to; and we do most heartily tender our thanks to the present Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, for the uncompromising manner in which he has put an end to this nuisance. Still it has knocked off a considerable deal of life. The absence of such dens of infamy has, however, at Ascot been compensated for by the quantity of eating and other booths, which keep up the bustle of the scene, and amuse those who are not devoted to the racing itself. A great portion of the heath represented a large fair; there were temporary Almacks, where the dancing-ah! "parlez moi, Dolly, de-ça"--was kept up with the greatest spirit; polkas, quadrilles, reels, and country-dances; there were stalls for nuts, gingerbread, shrimps, "pologne" sausages, fried eels, periwinkles, oranges, toys, bulls-eyes, roast potatoes, and other comestibles. Then there were the usual number of solicitors and special pleaders in the shape of soldiers who had never heard a shot fired, and sailors who had never even seen the "briny;" the halt, the maimed, the blind, the fatherless, the motherless, widows, orphans, babes in arms, children, gipsies, trampers and cadgers were "plentiful as blackberries." There were to be seen conjurors, tumblers, prizefighters, ballad-singers, mountebanks, fortune-tellers, black-legs, and their "betters." It may here be not inappropriate to make a slight digression upon the origin of racing in England. We have no means of ascertaining the period at which horse-racing commenced in our "tight little island." There are, however, authentic records still existing, describing some races at Epsom during the reign of Henry the Second Smithfield, too, was a place of sport, as an old writer says: "It was customary for the young citizens of London to ride out into the fields every Sunday in Lent for diversion. Some were armed with lances and shields, and exhibited a sort of tournament; others, generally boys, rode races. A signal being given, they set off at full speed, urging their horses with shouts and clamour, as well as with whip and spurs. When the court was near, the nobility witnessed these performances, which generally took place at Smithfield, then called Smoothfield, from its being a smooth, level piece of ground, and, therefore, set apart as a proper spot on which to show and exercise horses. It was then, as it is now, a market for horses." Under Henry the Eighth the traces are somewhat more clearly defined. "Bluff Harry" patronized the Chester and Stamford Meetings, which might have been called steeple-chases, for there were some stiff fences on the race-course. The prizes, like those of the Olympic Games, were valuable only for the honour due to the conquerors, who received a small wooden bell, ornamented with flowers. We question much whether such rewards would suit the victors of our times, who require rather more weighty golden opinions. The "bell" system would, however, have furnished a point for the

"prophets" of those days, and had the Derby and Oaks of 1845 been run for in 1545, we have no doubt but that in the "Bell's Life," the "Era," and "Sunday Times" of that period, we should have seen a most vivid description of the race :—

"The famed Merry Monarch Charley Second is first,

And Doleful's" the cry, should you fancy the worst;
In the Oaks, Richmond's star will not vary its light,
Though we see its "Refraction" resplendent and bright.
From the Forth to Kent, Sussex, this joyous news tell,
'Bell Brothers' triumphant will 'bear off the bell.'"'

James the First, or Queen James, as the lampooners of that day styled him, established a regular organization for these matters. There were fixed periods for the races to take place. Race-courses were laid out at Newmarket, Croydon and Enfield Chase, and a silver bell was substituted for the former wooden one. In the distracted reign of Charles the First, little attention was paid to the breed of horses, or establishment of races. Cromwell, all Roundhead as he was, had a number of brood mares. As a sportsman, however, the Protector must bow to his equerry, whose famous horse," Place's White Turk," is well known in the annals of the ancient turf. After Cromwell came Charles the Second, and from this period horse-racing may date the importance which it has ever since maintained in England. It may not be here out of place to remark that two of the descendants of that monarch have been the greatest supporters of the turf in these our days; we allude to the late Duke of Grafton and the present Duke of Richmond. To return to their ancestor: upon coming to the throne, he found heavy chargers, blowing like grampuses, struggling against Flemish hunters, which in our high and palmy days of Melton would have been dubbed dray-horses. Charles, the merriest of all monarchs, re-established the races which had been instituted at Newmarket by James the First, and which had been interrupted by the "crop-eared knave," Cromwell. He also established the system of giving prizes of value, and set the example by giving a silver cup, value 100 guineas, to be run for. The era of thorough-bred horses on the turf, and fast ones off it, may be said to have commenced under the reign of this jovial prince. His stables contained some superb Arabian stallions, and he despatched his master of the horse, Sir Christopher Wyvil, in search of some thorough-bred mares. Sir Christopher set out on his travels, but whether he went to Arabia, Andalusia, Persia, Tartary, or India, history doth not record: certain, however, it is, that he returned to England with a string of very beautiful mares, which were henceforth denominated the "Royal Mares." We pass over the reigns of the bigot, James the Second, Mary, and William the Third (who, en passant, be it said, increased the number of Royal Plates, and frequently visited Newmarket,) and come to Queen Anne's, merely to record an event which took place at York, 1714, three days before Her Majesty's death, and which led to a remark that the queen had won a race after her demise. In those days we need scarcely remind our readers, that the travelling was not what it is in our time, and the result of the race was not known until many