Cooper quoted of "happy hunting fields," and your mental product will be- a moor! After dinner appeared the old keeper, who from long service and grey hairs had acquired the prescriptive right of a glass of toddy" with master.

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Come, John," said H——, "floor your lush' and tell us one of the old stories."

The old man pleaded no "omnibus hoc vitium cantoribus," but lighted his pipe, scratched his head, and began the

"GAMEKEEPER'S STORY,"

which, should my readers look with indulgence on the present letter, shall be modestly submitted to their eyes in a future number, by their loving friend AUTOPTES.

B. N. C.

THE STEEPLE CHASE.

PLATE II. "Now THEY'RE OFF."

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY J. F. HERRING, SEN.

"Each seems to say, Come, let us try our speed ;'
Away they scour impetuous, ardent, strong,
The green turf trembling as they bound along."

BLOOMFIELd.

"The Mighty Hunter," in summing up one of his great characters, finished off with this high compliment, that he was a man "who did everything well;" an "upon the whole," that might put him in tolerably strong contradistinction to the common acceptation of a gentleman, who it would appear can do nothing well. Old Johnson, in his usually agreeable manner, declared some man wrote very well— for a gentleman. A farm-bailiff, the other day, showing us a most beautifully selected herd of short-horns, owned, in answer to our enquiry, that his master was a very good judge-for a gentleman. Critics will tell us that at the amateur performance, Mr. So-and-so, or Lord Sucha-one, played Charles Surface, or Sir George Airy, very well-for a gentleman. Even in our own line, where a gentleman is declared to be nothing and nobody without his recreations, he still plays but second fiddle at them. A gentleman huntsman, nine times in ten, is taken but as another term for a bad one; and a gentleman jockey generally unites the two on much the same understanding. At most he may reach in this sphere the acmè allowed by Mr. Scrope Davies, who, in speaking of a friend's great efforts to carry out the character in every particular, admitted "he did look and ride like a jockey, but then it was like a bad jockey."

BB

Of course the steeple-chase, on its more general introduction amongst us, furnished no striking exception to so common a rule-an innovation pronounced as peculiarly the business of legs and dealers, could indeed scarcely be expected to offer any great hope or chance of gentlemen exhibiting their customary inferiority in attempting it. And yet when we come to consider the chief attributes of a steeple-chase star, it does seem a little odd, too, why gentlemen should not have from the first been freely permitted to test their prowess, if not even prove their su periority in the pastime. Courage, temper, skill, and practice, with an intimate knowledge of, and innate love for all pursuits connected with the horse, are the recommendations that call the cross-country jockgentle or simple-to the scale. The gentleman, par excellence, should have them all; courage and coolness his very birthrights" the power to do, the soul to dare"-time, to practise himself in all amusements associated with equestrianism, the first privilege of the man born "with nothing to do," and inclination for horses; a feeling that every point of "precedent" must imbue him with. The gentleman of all times has been, in fact, quite distinguished by his prowess in connection with that noble animal the horse, as the naturalists so justly designate him. His very titles expressed the bent of his genius, as in the Ippodomos of Homer, the Eques of Horace, or the Chivalry of our own early ages. A gentleman, then, ought to ride well, and not be content here with that indifferent excellence, on the strength of which masters of ceremonies proclaim that "no gentleman should dance too well." The elaborate length of his bow, or the studied stretch of his toe, might cause him to be mistaken for a dancing master; while, on the other part, the firmness of his seat, the lightness of his hand, and the resolution in his manner, can never detract from the bearing of the true gentleman. We might very possibly see him out-jockied by some pigmy in a struggle over the flat, when finesse and "gammoning" gave the half a head against him. In the dash and determination of the steeple-chase, however, one might have surely thought him at home, and so registered the sport accordingly, "as a pastime in which the English gentleman might not only indulge, but excel."

And lo! at length so has it happened. Time, that was to have furnished the rope in which steeple-chasing was to have perpetrated felo de se, has, strange to say, worked it out as peculiarly the sport of gentlemen. This has been clearly established by two great facts: imprimis, the gentleman jockey of the present day is as pure an aristocrat as can well be defined; his claims must have been proved in high places; his rank acknowledged "without one if or but," or vain his hope for that three pounds allowance which he shares with mares, geldings, and maiden horses. The gentleman jockey of the past was a pleasant fiction, attained like Molly Housemaid's kisses, on the simplest form of "ask and have." Anybody that wanted a mount assumed the character, and the world was far too polite to question his title to it. Quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore! the gentleman jockey is now in birth and breed inferior to none; the first part of the compound is really and truly carried out, while, as to the second, in actual performance, as a rider across country, again we may say he is inferior to none. amateur for once equals the professional; from Captain Ross on Clinker, to Captain Peel on Chandler; from Lord Waterford on the Sea, to

The

Lord Strathmore on the Switcher, we fear not the comparison. Still the nearer we draw to recent doings, the better perhaps for the position we have taken. Shall not Powell on Salute vie in Calendar with Powell on Saladin? Or come at once to the age we live in, and take the pick of the basket on either side-have'nt we Rowlands for an Oliver any day?

So great, in fact, has been the success of the gentlemen latterly, that the public has risen up against them with a kind of spoil-sport argument. How, say the handicappers, are we to bring horses together, when your other regulations tend directly to upset what we have been doing? Some three or four of the very best and most practised horsemen select for their riding some of the safest acceptances in the stake, and then you back their, perhaps already too apparent, ability, by striking off five or seven pounds of the weights apportioned! Could you for a moment reason that such men as Captain Peel or Mr. Rowlands should, on any occasion, take in equity this amateur allowance? If you put the five pounds any way, would it not be rather on than off to bring them to terms with the rest of the field? To do away with the distinction altogether, would be impolitic and most likely injurious to the sport, as it might go to lessen that active participation in it by those who alone can afford it the most legitimate support. Let the untried still be invited in this way to test their own prowess, in preference to handing over the honours and the colours on all occasions to grooms or trainers. Let them get a taste for the tourney in this manner; and then let us, by public performance, regulate their accomplishments on something like fair play with all, high or low, with whom they may hereafter have to contend. A good suggestion to meet the now somewhat unsatisfactory working of this clause was given by a correspondent of one of the sporting papers a week or two since, in which it was advised that the allowance to a gentleman should be decreased after his winning one grand chase, and quite discontinued when he had followed this victory up with another of anything like equal importance. Untried or unsuccessful jockeys would so proceed in the same manner as untried or maiden horses; while the really good, thorough-bred jockey and thorough-bred nag might follow up their succession of success without any of that cavilling which has lately attended the otherwise brilliant career of the aristocrats.

We have made the gentleman jockey so far our theme, because he figures as the hero of our plate. If the liberality of his whisker and moustache do not at once point to the man on the grey as the gentleman to whom we allude, the courteous reader will have the kindness to recollect we introduced him at saddling time a month or two since, as an officer of the "heavies" come over special for the mount. To show, however, that a hairy mug is not essentially a sign of what the knowingly vulgar call "a nob," we may remark that the white cap sitting well back on the chesnut is also one Mr. Burke would class in the Patrician order. The broad stripe on the off side is an out-and-out professional-Mason, Oliver, Barker, "Bardolph nosed Bean," or any body else of that ilk to whom you fancy you can make out a likeness. Fourthly and lastly, the quartered cap with purple body and white sleeves, and the awkwardish, hampered seat, is a gentleman's servant— out of place, we were nearly adding; for, take them as a body, we know