horse; and in spite of the long races in which he has been engaged, he is as sound and as fresh as ever. In the Coney Island Cup race he defeated Luke Blackburn, Monitor, Parole, and Uncas, winning in 3.583. We have every reason to expect that in the near future other foreign victories will be obtained by our sportsmen. We possess some of the best blood in the world. We have rich pastures; we have a better climate, at all events, than the British Islands; and we have trainers second to none in their art, and owners second to none in their enterprise. The performances of Iroquois and Foxhall leave no longer any room for cavil on these points. The best trotters that flourished about 1830 could not do a mile under 2.50, but in 1856 Flora Temple reduced the time to 2.24. In 1866, Woodruff's pride, Dexter, under the saddle, did the mile at Buffalo in 2.18, and in the following year in 2.17. Since that time Mr. Bonner's famous Rarus, Goldsmith Maid, Lulu, and others, have trotted their mile in 2.15 or less. But horses like these just mentioned are nothing to the wonderful trotters of to-day. Maud S., the queen of the turf, reduced the time, at Rochester in 1880, to 2.10; and in 1881, over the same course, she trotted a mile in the unparalleled time of 2.10. The first half of the Rochester track is by no means good; had it all been equal to the last half, she would have made the distance in 2.10. As a sustained performance, however, her achievement at Belmont Park, Philadelphia, in July, surpassed all previous record. She trotted three consecutive heats in 2.12, 2.134, 2.124. Her slowest heat beat Rarus's best at Hartford in 1878, when the record was 2.13, 2.13, and 2.15. Maud S. has now the glory of having achieved the fastest heat, the fastest two consecutive heats, and the fastest three consecutive heats that have ever been seen. If Maud S. is the queen, St. Julien is the king, of the trotting turf. He stands second to her alone with his last year's record of 2.114. His trainer, Hickok, has in Santa Claus another horse not unworthy of being matched with the queen of the turf. As a five-year-old he got a record which is still unbeaten, making the mile in 2.18. The speed of our trotting horses can not be approached by the animals of any other country. It has been attained, to quote from Hiram Woodruff's book, "by our method of breeding, training, and driving trotting horses, aided by the enterprise and ingenuity which provide vehicles, harness, and all the paraphernalia of that combination of lightness with strength which is modelled upon the plan of the best trotting horse himself." and remained there two months. His fame as a poet-for he had already written "Comus" and "Lycidas," "Il Penseroso" and "L' Allegro"- had preceded him, and he was warmly welcomed in the highest circles of society, and exchanged literary flatteries with the notabilities of the period. "No time will ever abolish," says he, in the Defensio Secunda, "the agreeable recollections which I cherish of Jacob Gaddi, Carlo Dati, Frescobaldo Cultillero, Bonomathei, Clementillo Francesco, and others." And in the Areopagitica he makes this further allusion to Italy: "There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old a prisoner to the Inquisition for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought." He was back again at Florence in the spring of 1639, after a winter spent in the south, principally at Naples, where he was so outspoken against popery that he was warned not to go to Rome, as his life would be in danger. He disregarded this would have been to us only as any other of the lovely nooks with which il bel paese abounds, of which it is impossible for the ordinary traveller to see the hundredth part. What Dante had done for many other places in Italy, Milton did for Vallombrosa. His comparison of multitudes to leaves was not new nor specially praiseworthy, though it could boast of an ancient and honorable pedigree, through Virgil, Dante, and Tasso. But the unexpected introduction of such a peaceful image into the description of the inflamed sea" gives us a relief like that of an exquisite sudden modulation in the midst of a stormy symphony. The very names of Vallombrosa and Etruria, too, are musical; the tongue and ear dwell with pleasure upon them; and the imagination supplies all the charm of Italian skies and scenery. But the chief interest of the comparison lies in the fact that when Milton wished to use it, instead of all the English forest haunts which he knew so well, there came spontaneously to his mind the vision of this far-off, up-caution, however, and did not abate his land valley; thus showing how deeply its beauty had engraven itself upon his recollection. He saw again the floods of sunshine on the yellowing chestnut leaves, and breathed the fragrant air, and was hushed by the silence and sacredness of the place. Perhaps, too, out of the tumult and disappointment of mature age, his thoughts turned back to rest for a moment on those untroubled days, when he tasted, with the zest of a poet and a scholar, the beauties of nature and of art in Italy. We may fancy that it was with an effort that he brought himself back to the present, and to his great theme. And then, as if rousing himself to shake off this softer mood, the simile which follows returns to the minor key again, as he likens the infernal regions to "the scattered sedge Afloat when with fierce winds Orion arm'd Of Milton's Italian journey we have, unfortunately, few particulars. We know that it was undertaken with the best advantages of money, credentials, and counsel. freedom of speech. "By the favor of God," he records, "I got back to Florence, where I was received with as much affection as if I had returned to my native country." The visit to Vallombrosa was without doubt made during Milton's first stay in Florence, as he says explicitly that during the second he made no excursions except to Lucca. He passed over the mountains to Geneva, and reached home after an absence of about fifteen months. It was a bright day early in October, 1877, when I first visited Vallombrosa. The mountain on which it is situated is plainly visible from Florence, and my eyes had often been drawn thither with an irresistible attraction. The excursion is peculiarly one for the early autumn; for the route along the valley of the Arno and on the western slope of the hills is too much exposed to the sun to be agreeable during the summer heats; and as in America so in Italy, October is the one perfect month of the year for out-of-door pleasures. Of the latter, perhaps, Sir Henry Vallombrosa is eighteen miles from Wotton's letter, repeating to his young Florence. To go thither it is usual to friend the advice which had been given to take the Roman train as far as Pontassieve himself in Italy, to keep his thoughts close (about three-quarters of an hour); but it and his looks open (pensieri stretti e viso is far preferable to drive, as the distance sciolto) was the most useful. Milton arcan easily be accomplished in two hours. rived in Florence early in September, 1638, and the difference in enjoyment more |