he

turn to England was recommended as the most probable means of restoration; but unhappily the remedy was not effected in time expired at Stevens' Hotel, in Bond-street, on the 10th of May, soon after his arrival in England, having attained the age of 68. In the year 1800 he entered the Bengal army, and distinguished himself for his gallant and successful bravery in many fierce engagements under C. J. Macdonald and Lord Lake, who highly esteemed the young sol dier's daring. In 1830 Sir Walter (then Colonel Gilbert) was in England; he had, however, evinced his fondness for racing when in India. His first purchase, if my memory serves me, of a race-horse in this country, was a half-bred one called Knepp, with which horse he was unsuccessful; but subsequently he had others in training which must have paid most of their expenses, as well as affording amusement. As a gentleman rider, the gallant General was eminently superior, and it was an accomplishment of which he was very fond. With hounds he

was a steady, good performer, evidently riding for the purpose of seeing them hunt, and not for the fashionable custom of riding in competition with others. Sir Walter continued to reside in England many years, until his services were again required in India, and was present at Moodkee, Sobraon, Chilianwallah, Goojerat, and the Punjab, where 16,000 Sikh soldiers grounded their arms to him, a triumphant conclusion of a gallant and glorious career.

TURF PENCILLINGS.

BY THE DRUID.

"A hound and a hawk no longer

Shall be symptoms of disaffection;

A cock-fight shall cease to be breach of the peace,
And a horse-race an insurrection."

SONG OF THe Cavaliers.

"I am a friend, Sir, to public amusements; for they keep people from vice."DR. JOHNSON TO SIR ADAM FERGUSON.

Newmarket and Chester Meetings-The Ascot Cup-Doncaster commotions-Bath and Manchester Meetings-The bold beadle-The Derby and Oaks.

The Newmarket First Spring claims little more notice than what we gave it last month. The remarkably true relative running of Cobnut, A-la-mode, and Diomedia was a beautiful illustration of the apothegm that every pound tells in a finish ;" and young King sent forth a pilot balloon in the shape of Mentmore Lass. His father professed himself, at Newmarket, as being quite incredulous as to the filly's chance; but it is a matter of notoriety that some of the metropolitan "List! O list! gentlemen were pretty heavily milked in the course of the eighteen hours which preceded the race. Comfit beat all the known animals, as I expected she would; but I apprehend that she will always be more effective over a severe hilly course than a flat one. Auld Acquaintance's cracked heels kept her at home, and Sylphine's

leg does not improve on acquaintance. No hill, a shorter course, and sounder ground, suited Orinoco in the Newmarket Stakes, but still it was all he could do to defeat the raking stride of the great flat-sided Filbert. At Chester his opponents were of a still meaner stamp, and he required none of that "pressing which proved so fatal to him in his great essay. The first three-year-old appearance of Pelion was one of the salient points of Chester. This primest of all the sons of Ion looks more dangerous than any three-year-old in the Ascot Cup. I somehow or other do not fancy Stockwell for this event, as the very severe finish seems certain to tire a horse with his ugly round action. Filbert's performances do not increase my confidence in him, as The Marquis is pretty certain to have put them together, and I see nothing in his York defeat of Longbow, who was quite out of his distance, to make me believe him a 66 great horse." Unless I am very much mistaken, Teddington will give 32lbs. to Pelion, and just win the Cup, as he has a splendid turn of speed, and is well built for hill climbing to boot. I should not be surprised if Kingston is reserved for Newcastle, but query if he can give Black Doctor a year and 21lbs. Nancy seems well in here, but Yorkshire is of opinion that her '51 high form quite left her as soon as she began to come "in season. Exact also showed at Chester in very different colours to what she did on the Metropolitan day; and Brown Brandy, who bids fair to be a sort of Lambton the Second to John Osborne, made his maiden bow. He is a goodlooking animal with short legs and plenty of wear and tear about him, but not very distantly related to the "Slowman family." As for the Cup, I feel-and every one else does-that there has been no Chester Cup race this year. In fact, I am sorely puzzled to understand the racing law which can pronounce such a start valid. Surely the starter and his flagsman are for the time being one flesh; and if the latter fails to let down his flag at once, and thus deludes a large proportion of the rear jockeys into a belief that it is no start, this act of omission ought as much to nullify the start as if the jockeys had gone away without the word! I trust that the "gentle violence "which was at last brought to bear on Mr. Topham will not be without its fruits, as he was slightly disposed to adopt the "like it or lump it" principle towards owners. But for this failing he would have yielded to their wishes last year, when Mr. Horsley's style of starting was so universally condemned. Goldfinder is known to fame principally as the horse whose successful win at Warwick enabled Mr. Merry to buy Hobbie Noble ; and he ran far too forward in all his races last year to induce a primâ facie belief that he did not run on the square in them. "Four years," however, is a very critical age, and horses often get sadly misjudged by their then form of running. Still I believe that his present form is far from a high one, and that there were better horses than the leading trio left behind at the post. Little Jack had a strong party, who had snapped up the 66 to 1's as soon as ever the weights came out ; but The Lothians Club was destined to witness the first of his six-year-old glories. He is a wonderfullyuseful horse, and albeit his legs have always been cranky, he has won twenty-two times, and lost rather oftener. Russborough took heart from the Northern breezes, and made very light of him in a Queen's Plate there. Shrewsbury proved that "W. B." does not engross all Mr. Barber Frail's best affections, and a very creditable meeting was the

result. Brown Brandy was "full proof" again, though he was gauged by not a few competitors, and Black Doctor's disinclination to make an effort was, as the lawyers say, "matter of observation" to the Ascot handicappers. Mr. Saxon "meant " differently with him to what he did at Chester, when his trainer, Abrahams (who is no chicken, to look at) was fairly boiled down to 7st. 3lb. to ride him, and got left at the post after all. Good racing out of dullish lists was the order of the day at Newmarket Second Spring, and every one wondered why the Jockey Club should waste £200 over a stake when £100 would have been ample. Their liberality met with only a scanty reward. The mysterious Gossamer, a very uncertain sort of mare, was, as usual, absent; ditto Mountain Deer; and therefore the great race lost nearly all its interest. Chief Baron Nicholson was visible at last, after some 330 days of retirement; but, though he can stay naturally, Kent can never teach him the "whole art of speed," charm he never so wisely, on the Sussex downs. The Rowley Mile Plate-which erst gave rise to that glorious prophetic effort of " Vates"

"'Tis over; the trick for the thousands is done:

George Edwards on Phosphorus the Derby has won!"

(which said prophecy astonished no one more than the noble owner of the horse himself)-furnished no Derby foreshadowings this year with Feversham; and Ilex received a dressing which, with the rich Goodwood Four-year-old Stake in view, he might as well have been spared. Three miles in six minutes, over such a choking course, is no mean performance. Surely Weathergage, Teddington, Kingston, and Stockwell will be able to take each other's measure at Ascot, Goodwood, or Doncaster, in a more sportsman-like style than by travelling over the Beacon Course next October under 10st., for a challenge whip, and £200 p.p. & side.

During this week the Doncaster Corporation had one of those periodical fierce racing rows in their council chamber which have become part and parcel of English turf history. Having decided on a Mr. Clarke as judge, by the casting-vote of the Mayor, it was then proposed to build a new stand for spectators, trainers, jockeys, and reporters, at £800 cost. The anti-race men became at once like as many fretful porcupines. One councillor modestly demanded to know "why gentlemen who had not accommodation did not build a stand for themselves?" and further added that the idea of any loss to their funds from the total annihilation of the races was a "visionary dream," and "the race-ground a piece of democracy." Warming to his work, and, by way of an assault on the (£1,000 grant) memory of Lord George, he then "squared up" at the corporation steward, and "hoped that in future he would consider it beneath him, as a Surveyor of the Board of Health (!) and Steward of the Corporation (!!), to act as starter at the Spring Meeting." An alderman was also of opinion that the enclosure itself was an evil, "because the foot people were deprived of their usual places of standing in front of and under the pillars of the Grand Stand. It was perfect folly to accommodate a particular class of gentlemen." In spite of all these curious sentiments, "The Father of the Spring Meeting" gallantly stuck to his motion, and mustered 9 to 8 on the division, and the vested interests of "the dog-hole" were

for ever smashed. By next September the enclosure arrangements will challenge comparison with any meeting in England. We have alluded thus at length to this debate, to show the strong, manly efforts of the racing men in the corporation "to make things comfortable and pleasant;" and we sincerely trust that they whose interests they do battle for, as well as their own, will heartily back them up on the entry days in their ceaseless anti-bigotry combat. Unless their next meeting is very successful, they will have to fight like fiends to get the at present extra £200 grant revoted, and hence they look forward with no little anxiety to its result. We must, however, remark that when it as notorious as the sun at noonday that the stand receipts for 1850-52 have averaged £900 a year more than in 1847-49, and that the corporation have thereby been enabled to promise £1,000 a year for five years for the restoration of their parish church, such churlish comments fall very ungracefully on the public ear.

If Bath never has a better meeting than she had this year, she will not ail much. The good action of Mouser, which I noticed in my Epsom notes, stood her in good stead, and Red Lion, who is a great fine-looking chesnut, and capable of carrying a very heavy weight, made very light of his Shrewsbury victor, Audubon (as neat and short-legged a nag as one would wish to see), although he had several pounds the worst of the weights at this second time of asking. Strange to say, Carroll and Steggles seemed both to lose their heads, and Tommy Lye waited quietly till they "came back" to him. The sale of the whilom 15 gs. Massaroni for £200, goes far to prove that Mr. Parr has not merely great luck, but as fine an eye for a racehorse as any man that ever trod the turf.

At Manchester there was a capital allowance of sport, and the success of Lye on that fine straddling hunter, Chief Justice, rhymed as pleasantly with the "tea and sugar-pot, &c.," intentions which his admiring townsmen entertained towards him, as Lord Zetland's maiden Newmarket victory in the Zetland Stakes did with his Jockey Club initiation. Longbow was as great and glorious as ever with high weights and short distances. It seems but yesterday that his dam, Miss Bowe, beat General Chassè at this very meeting, but over a much more trying course. The General's old steersman had a piece of luck on Arthur Wellesley, who is a racing-like horse, and likely to improve, but never to be a very shining light. He would have been a maiden still, if Barrel had not "cut it" within a few strides of the chair. Augusta is cast in a very different mould, and is weedy-looking and leggy while King of Trumps seems to be getting back to his two-year-old form again he is the only good specimen of Velocipede extant.

It seemed as if 1853 was determined to make up for the short-comings of its elder brother as regards weather, seeing that it produced a Derby day which was exactly in the other extreme. At last the House of Commons recognised the Derby as part and parcel of the British Constitution, and adjourned from Tuesday to Thursday in its honour. The attendance of male spectators was as numerous as we ever saw it; but a newspaper cynic-most probably one of "a serious family at Clapham "

whose only idea of Derby enjoyment is to watch the Epsom departures along that road, considered that there were not so many of the other sex, and that it was indicative of an "improved tone of feeling."

We agree with him in his statistics, but at the same time beg to express a hope that her Majesty may continue satisfied with her present "tone of feeling," and not desert Ascot next week.

Not relishing a 7s. 6d. imposition, we chose the South-Western route, and quietly trudged it over the fields from Kingston. It was eleven years since we had gone that road on a Derby day, and it was impossible to avoid being struck with the much greater interest in racing which the conversation of the different walking parties betokened. Everyone seemed to have " something on" somewhere; and we were much tickled with the story of a beadle of a metropolitan church, who had backed Ninnyhammer with some betting-office for a crown at 20 to 1, and had been driven to the very verge of despair by losing his ticket. Some very unlikely persons speculated during the railway mania, but we had no idea that the spirit of betting had penetrated the august realms of beadledom. How little his unsuspicious vicar could have thought, as that great man opened the reading-desk for him, or clasped him into his pulpit, or preceded the school-children on Sundays in his cocked-hat, what Ninnyhammer hopes and fears have been perpetually beating, for months back, in that blue-laced bosom.

But to proceed. It is no fiction to say that the ground was as hard as granite, and cracking in every direction, and there was but a very dark outlook for tender legs. Hence we regarded poor Cheddar with not a little pity, as he stalked about the paddock full of life and spirits, which he expressed very audibly at intervals. He does not seem grown, but he is a well-knit, stout animal, and quite cast in the mould of a Derby nag. There was very little fault to find with his condition, but his all fours were in a very poor state; in fact, we never saw a Derby horse worse off in that department. He was a very great favourite as a two-years-old, both with his stable and his breeder, Lord Jersey; and, if sound legs had not been denied him, he would have taken a monstrous deal of beating. As it was, the party could not get off their money at any price. Rattle, a useful-looking, rough and ready animal, who has been trained along with some hunters in Sussex, and was led about by a regular "chawbacon," and he were the only Derby appearances in the paddock for some time, and then the scene was enlivened by the irruption of the runners for the Carew Stakes; Nightshade galloping nearly to the farthest corner before young Oliver could pull her up. Both he and Osborne left word, in all good faith, that they had won. Orestes and Scott's lot seemed to engross the largest share of the attention while they were in their sheets, and those who chose to stay in the paddock to the last were amply rewarded, as after the canters, the whole 28 walked round and round it for nearly a quarter of an hour. Looking at the 28 in a body, they struck us as a tall, leggy lot, much more suited to an A.F. contest than the one which they had undertaken. Jerry Kent's legs having given way in his Tuesday gallop, "our Sam was at liberty for Sittingbourne, who looked remarkably well in his coat. Still there was, we thought, a lack-lustre expression about his eye, which seemed to betoken that he was a trifle stale. Orestes looked to have far more substance in his sheets than he proved to have when he was stripped he is simply a clever hack, and has a short and rather ewe neck, which he holds very erect; so much so, that he is honoured with a nose band. He had quite quieted down before starting, but many