THE CELEBRATED RACE-HORSE, ECLIPSE.

We copy the following article of Animal Biography, unprecedented in the annals of the turf, from the Monthly Magazine for May.

one hundred and fifty-eight thousand pounds, various smaller sums and forfeits not included.

His exact speed was never known, as no horse could be found to call forth his extreme pace. His collateral ancestor, Flying Childers, was supposed to have done a mile in a minute; if this be admitted, and it were possible he could continue such a pace without intermission, he would, in eight days and nights, measure the belt and circumference of the whole earth, and arrive in his stable again, if no obstacle opposed him, before the ninth night. The circumference of the globe, from the most correct computation, is stated at 25,855 miles.

If we examine his make in the portrait, as well as in the skeleton, the most marked difference is in his croup, which stands particularly high, owing to the length of his hind limbs; and his thigh bones are, for a blood-horse, of an enormous size, which, if provided with proportionate muscle and energy, must give him great superiority. It was also remarked in his gallop, that his hind legs were very wide and separated; the width of the haunch bones and pelvis, which also partook of this increased volume, would account

sufficiently for this appearance, the hind legs being parallel columns from the haunch, and not approaching upwards, as do the fore limbs.

His fore feet were dropped in the hoofs and foundered, and his coffin bones were very much rounded and diminished by absorption from undue pressure upon the sole. He was thick winded, probably from some error or exposure in his bringing up. He died at Canons on the 28th of February, 1789, of the gripes, at the age of twenty. five years; and cakes and ale were given at the funeral of his flesh, after the manner of the Godolphin Arabian; for his skin was preserved, and his bones were nicely cleared of every covering but the ligaments that held them together, by the masterly hand of Sainbel, the first professor of the Vete rinary College, and an excellent anatomist, as which, more than in any thing else, he excelled. Sainbel has stated, in his work on Eclipse, that his heart weighed fourteen pounds,-a remarkable size for a blood horse.

His bones, contained in a case at Mr. Bullock's, are now offered for sale for one hundred guineas, Mr. Bullock of the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, hav ing the disposal of them.

LETTER FROM THE CITY OF NAPLES.
(English Magazines, June.)

Naples, 22d Dec. 1821. ON quitting the health office, which building is better known under the name of L'Immacolata, we elbowed our way along a terrace open to the port to the well known Strada Molo, which is certainly one of the most singular streets in Europe, and here we felt ourselves once more in Naples. It would be impossible to give a description that should do justice to this spot; we know it well, and we are aware that no sketch from our pens could convey to the mind of the stranger any idea of its hurry and confusion, its noise, its lengthened farce and caricature, or rather not caricature but nature in a whimsical and antic dress; a few words, however, may recall to the memories of those who have visited

this spot some of its half-forgotten scenes. The Strada Molo runs from the Largo del Castello down to the mole, being the grand passage to that primitive and national theatre; it is formed on one side by the Castello Nuovo, a large dark castle with a broad fosse; and, on the other side, by as incongruous a row of houses as one may desire to see. It is a broad street: in descending towards the sea, you have the high lanterna of the molo, the ships, a little of the bay, and the mountain of Vesuvius in view; in ascending towards Toledo, you see a green hill rising close behind the city, capped by the white and many-windowed monastery of San Martino, and the old frowning castle of Sant Elmo, (or more properly Sant Eremo ;) either way

the views are picturesque, and the place is altogether open and pleasant.

On one side of this street, under the castle are ranged stalls of old clothes men, venders of old copper, jewellery, and watches "made to sell;" merchants who deal in every variety of rusty locks and keys, pistols without locks, knives without handles, pewter, copper, iron and wooden spoons, saucepans, gridirons, screws, nails, curiosities, and antiquities made in the newest way, and a vast variety of other wares. Formerly, almost every stall had an assortment of old stilettos, but now it is not permitted to sell them. On the other side, you get among much more dignified personages; here are the Carva Mole (or tooth drawers) flourishing their enormous pincers, and displaying a large board, something like a Mexican's shield, covered with tusks of every shape and size, rent from the jaws of hapless Lazzaroni; just by is a still more important character, a mountebank hoisted on a tottering table, flanked by a large open case of bottles, of various colours, each a specific for a thousand diseases, and a picture representing the marvellous cures he has performed, and perhaps by another case containing trusses, bandages, and plasters for such as want or may want them. He is surrounded by a gaping crowd; his words flow from him "smooth, rapid, deep, and clear," one may see they cost him nothing; it is amazing how many dead, at least as good as dead, he has resuscitated by his art; it is incredible how many letters he has received from dukes and duchesses, and celeberimi professori, inviting him to take up his residence in a palace, or in a university, and how he has refused them all-all; preferring to sell bottles and plasters in the Strada Molo, and to cure Lazzaroni, Marinari, and Calessieri, of incurable diseases, at ten or fifteen grains a head. He proudly displays his power over the brute creation, by twisting long live serpents round his arms and neck, and also, "not to speak it profanely," by making the by-standers open their mouths and their pockets, and gaze at him in a stupor of credulity and astonishment.

The versa

A little farther on, just by the postoffice, under the shade of a tattered boat-sail, sits a man of letters, with a pen in his hand, an inkhorn, an iron snuff-box, containing the true erba santa, and some white (that is to say, rather white) sheets of paper before him. We have frequently walked up to him, at times played the eavesdropper, and have had occasion to smile at the variety of subjects which pass under this good man's pen, for he is one of a multitude who assist with their literary abilities those who have not happened to cultivate the art of writing. This poor fellow sits here, ill sheltered from wind and weather, and scribbles and gossips away from morning till night, and covers a whole sheet of paper for five grains. tility of his talent is kept in continual exercise; he now listens to a tight donnetta, and having dispatched her letter of tender, or reproaching, or despairing love, turns round to a haggard old woman who is overflowing with ire, and who bursts out into complaints of debts not paid, and menaces of a prison; when that is done, perhaps his ear is filled and his hand arrested by a galantuomo who makes excuses for debts he cannot pay, and promises to pay very soon; his facile pen returns thanks for a bundle of caccio-cavallo,* or runs through a letter of compliments which is to accompany a basket of real Moccaroni della Costa, and then prepares to follow the story which a sturdy paesano is ready to pour into his listening ear, that he has sold his master's pigs, and bought the calesso, and will return, without fail, on the second day after the festa di San Gennaro. All this is delivered in pure unorthographical Neapolitan ; nor does the business always pass off currently; frequent doubts and difficulties are proposed to the scribe by the persons who employ him, and who are not quite satisfied that he has expressed their meaning with precision and force; this elicits various explanations on his side, when the com

Caccio-cavallo is a dry salt cheese, made of goat or sheep's milk. The best maccaroni is made on the shores of the Bay of Naples, at the Terre dell' An

nunziate, near Pompeii, at the most celebrated manufactories

mon reply, its effect.

display their kitchen in the street, and cook over their charcoal fires the precious morsels of life: they ladle out their maccaroni, and their customers seize and dispatch it in a moment; they make no account of the modern luxuries of plates and spoons, or knives and forks; they catch up a handful, lift the long slippery strings up in the air, open their capacious mouths, and adroitly introducing them, let them slide down their throats: and when all is over, with a deep sigh, partly from satisfaction, and partly from regret that the good things are so soon gone, they walk off, looking round as they go, with an air of superiority, upon the poor rogues standing by who have not four grains to do the like, and then each with a grain or two that is still left him, directs his steps to a cantina just at hand, where two or three share a carafa of wine between them, of course, without the use of glasses; and if they are particularly expert, their method is to reverse the bottle in the air, and catch the red stream in their mouths as it descends; this they do almost without spilling a drop, and by some means, instantly stop the current when they have drunk their share.

66 non dubitate," fails of From these spectacled sages, we are called away by the sounds of cracked trumpets, and crazy long drums, interrupted at intervals by the shrill voice of Polcinello, inviting passers by, with jokes two hundred years old, just to step into his Teatrino (about as large and clean as a blacksmith's shop) and to see all its wonders at the very reasonable price of three grains; near this is a strapping wench in trowsers and a short red jacket, sawing across a squeaking fiddle with a long bow (of the same odd shape as those which Luca Giordano and Solimeno put in the hands of their fiddling angels), and a little hump-backed gentleman blowing a clarionet; pictures divided into squares are suspended behind; in one compartment there is a fair lady lifting up a donkey by her hair, and in another, a troop of dapper horses and horsemen passing between her legs. A few doors off is a show of Marionettes, where the invitations are equally clamorous; and, next to that, is an iron bedstead maker, who, if possible, makes still more noise. Opposite is a famous lolypop maker, dabbing, beating, and screwing out the glutinous By the doors of the cantini, one mass, to the no small temptation of a hears at nearly all hours vehement crowd of children, and Lazzaroni and cries of quattro, nove! cinque ! sette! Lazzarone, who are children also in &c. these proceed from Lazzaroni their affection for sweets, as in most playing at La Motra, a primitively other particulars. Here too there is simple game, but which still is not generally an old woman singing, ac- without its flats and its sharps, its companied by an old man playing the adroit and its maladroit. It is thus fiddle; the subject of the songs, and performed two players close their of the grotesque paintings on a large hands, raise them above their heads, board just by, are the miracles of some and bringing them rapidly down again, Madonna, some one among thousands; open as many of their fingers as they the music, the poetry, and the pictures think fit; each guesses at the aggregate are very odd, but very well adapted to number, and both cry out at the same each other, and to the people to whom moment, and while their hands are dethey are directed. Here and there you scending. Twelve, sixteen, or twenty see various curious groupes; as, for in- is game; the one who guesses right stance, in one place a celebrated opera- gains a point, of which he keeps actor, surrounded by four or five fellows, count by opening a finger of his left from whose jackets or coats he is hand, which is always held up in the cleaning the grease and other impuri- air. The principal beauty and advanties by means of a marvellous composi- tage of the game is, that continual distion which is contained in little phials; putes arise between the players about -venders of maccaroni, polpetti, stu- the numbers they have cried, which fato, &c., some of whom possess a are frequently difficult to decide, as shop in a cellar, but the greater part they both bawl out together and form