DECEMBER, 1840. EMBELLISHMENTS. "THE BITER BIT," ENGRAVED BY PRIOR, FROM A PAINTING BY BATEMAN. ON THE NATURE OF THE FOXHOUND, AND ON HUNTING GENE- TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. OUR friend at Preston will find all he comments on reformed anon. Thanks for the Darlington Communication: we hope soon to hear again from the same quarter. The desire of him of "The Heathenish Word" has been complied with, though the lines were in type; we must have amends forthwith. We should be glad to communicate personally with the author of "Lion Hunting" and other papers forwarded for the use of this work: will he leave his address at the Publisher's? Absence from town during the greatest portion of the past month must be our excuse for many letters and communications still unanswered, which shall now have immediate attention. A mass of contributions-some of pressing temporary interest — is of necessity postponed from sheer want of room. All that can have insertion next month shall be given: we trust no offence will be taken where no feeling exists on our part but one of most grateful courtesy. Our notices of Literature and the Fine Arts, for the same reason, must stand over for our next Number. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Parts of Professor Low's "Illustrations of the Breeds of the Domestie Animals of the British Islands;" " Sporting Scenes and Country Characters;" "The Equestrian ;""The Sporting Almanac," &c. &c. &c.; have been received. The Index to The Turf Register will be published in the January Number. Vol. IV., bound in fancy cloth, boards, lettered, is now ready. Proof Impressions of all the Plates that have appeared in this Work are on sale at the Publisher's, 33 Old Bond Street, at 2s. each; or, beautifully coloured, at 2s. 6d. A PAGE, PAST AND PROSPECTIVE. May I add a few words on a subject on which all men are supposed to be fluent, and none agreeable - self?"-BYRON. WITH the present Number ends the Fourth Volume of this work. It has now been two years before the Public; its Editor ventures to ask, has he not kept the promise wherewith he first solicited for it that countenance and patronage which he here so gratefully acknowledges? In somewhat altered relations towards his bantling, may he not proudly point to the blossoms of its spring, as fair guerdon of the good fruit of its maturer season? Short as the course it has yet run, it has been one of triumph from the start. He lays its pages open, and asks, did any periodical of its class ever put forth matter of fact or practice under the authority of higher names as guarantees for the truth of its assertion, or the excellence of its theory, than those attached to it as its avowed contributors? No unseemly pride can be urged against the feeling that prompts these references to the past arrogance against the spirit in which he anticipates a continuance of present support-an accession of new favours. To his own talent no he attributes no iota of his success; to his industry, however anxious, but a trifling share of it. By private friendship and individual courtesy, on which he had no claims, sources of information have been opened to him that neither money nor exertion could have made available. From the friends that have honoured him with their support heretofore, he has received assurances of undiminished zeal; from many distinguished patrons of the rural sports of the country, promises of future assistance. With this allusion to good fortunes and good omens had closed this address, but that some mention of the system on which the work will continue to be henceforth conducted appeared necessary from the observation made as to the altered relation of the Editor towards it. From the Dedication of "The Corsair to Thomas Moore. Briefly, then, the design in which it originated—that of giving to the first sporting country in the world a sporting periodical of a character suited to the period of literary refinement in which we live, will continue the end and aim of the Editor of THE Sporting REVIEW. Circumstances which have given him increased interest in, and anxiety for, its position and career, have also placed in his hands the power to organise it as his judgment may hold fittest and most convenient. Sound articles, conceived in a free spirit, and expressed in honest phrase, will form its staple, in lieu of empty embellishments: original communications on the theory and practice of our field sports, and present notices of such influences as may affect the economy of rural life, its business or pleasure, instead of flimsy sketches of fancy, or stale plats of obsolete news, hashed up from antiquated journals. Fresh talent, wherever it may offer, will be sought, and, if possible, added to the present treasury; while the jealous care and scrupulous solicitude that shall watch and regulate every sentiment and phrase admitted into its pages, will, it is trusted, be found becoming a volume especially selected for patronage from the class to which it belongs by a Prince, whose taste and dignity are alike the most distinguished in the land. THE PAST RACING SEASON. "Scribimus indocti, doctique."— HORAT. THE extraordinary progress which the taste for the turf has made within the last few years, and still continues to make, may be gathered from the following facts more satisfactorily than if a volume were written to prove it. In 1830, the details of all the principal races ran for in England, and the metropolitan betting upon them, were alone to be had from the accounts furnished by the one solitary reporter employed upon that department of intelligence for the whole of the London journals. In 1840, how many scribes were so occupied it would probably puzzle the best hand at logarithms to determine. Some idea, however, may be formed of their numbers, when it is stated, the multitudes had, in that year, grown to so formidable a body that, availing themselves of the invention of which necessity is the parent, they divided into two tribes, whereof the one occupied itself in recording the results of races before they occurred, and the other in narrating the incidents after they had taken place. At the close of the season, which has just ended, these united for the purpose of giving the world handsome epitomes of their summer's work; the consequences being such recapitulations of the meetings held in every quarter of the kingdom, as left the most industrious gleaner without hope of picking up one unappropriated straw. Everybody reads the journals nowadays, and, consequently, everybody has seen the Derby run over again, inch by inch, from the Warren road to the Judge's stand, a good score of times since the first Sunday in November last. This being so, it may be asked, with what intent do we now address ourselves to aught having reference to the Past Racing Season? I wish the cause were neither so obvious nor of so great concern. I wish it did not behove every friend of the noblest and most important of our national sports, to examine carefully the majority of the great racing events of 1840, and to ask himself, What was their tendency?—to what end must they finally lead? Here, indeed, is a question of deep interest: one, not only involving the legitimate object of the sporting reviewer, but whose solution it is his peculiar duty, if possible, to arrive at. That the vast superiority of English horses over those of all other countries is owing to the impulse given to the improvement of the breed by the establishment of races, it needs no logic now to prove. The English thorough-bred horse, the pride of his own land-the envied and sought of every other is not the product alone of the materials of which he is constructed, but of the care and skill with which they have been treated. Centuries before Oriental horses were introduced into England for the improvement of the indigenous species, they had been used for a similar purpose in Spain, Germany, and France. Nature, too, had endowed these countries with far greater aptitude for such an experiment than was to be found in the cold and humid climate of our island. Still do we see all the nations of the Continent at this hour paying us tribute for our unrivalled race of coursers. France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, have established extensive breeding-studs, as government institutions; and where do they seek their stock? Not in the East, but in importations from the thorough. blood of Britain-among the aristocracy of the "English Racing Calendar." Yet while, in every other country of the universe, the surpassing character of our pure blood in the present day is confessed, at home it is regarded as shorn of its former glories, and continually alluded to as degenerated and impaired. It is as difficult to account for the origin of this impression, as for its almost universal adoption. By men of sound judgment in the economy of the turf, the qualities of our early racers are constantly referred to in reproach of their descendants. It will not be out of place here to exhibit the glaring fallacy of such inferences. As there are no authentic records extant of the feats of Flying Childers, we will leave them and their disciples undisturbed, and pass on to achievements of less equivocal reputation. From a diary kept by the father of the late Mr. Robson, the celebrated Newmarket trainer, the following extract was made from a list of trials and performances under the head of " Remarkable Time in Racing." "1765-May 7th. Trial over the B. C.; five-years old, 8 st. 12lb; six, and aged, 9 st. 5 lb. Cardinal Puff, Bragger, and Omnium, ran the distance in 8m 22′. May 9th. Same course; same weights. Fylax, Specimen, Herald, Broomstick, and Curiosity, ran it in 8m 198. "1768-October 15th. Four-years old, 7 st. 12 lb.; five, 9 st. 5 lb.; and aged, 10 st. 10 lb. Goldfinder, Caliban, and Askham, ran the B. C. in 8m 5. "Bellario, five-years old, 9 st. 8 lb., ran the B. C. in 9m 1o. |