whom I was introduced as Mrs. O'Cleverley ; her husband-a dark, forbidding looking man, who was called “ Major,” being nearly opposite. Kate was nearer Papa ; and my view of her was somewhat obscured by the curly brown head, and stupendous whiskers, mustachios, &c., of a Count Favoris, an extremely good-looking foreigner, who paid her, I thought, much unnecessary attention, and who doubtless would have been still more agreeable, as well as intelligible, had he spoken the English language less entirely from ear. Next to him came my friend Sharpes, who had been obliged to be in London all that day, and had stopped to dinner with Mr. Čotherstone on his way back to our joint abode. A place had been laid for Mr. MacBullion, of Discount-villas, Regent's-park, and the Stock Exchange, whose name it struck me I had heard somewhere ; but he never made his appearance. Dinner progressed prosperously. Mrs. O'Cleverley and I became great friends ; and her husband drank “woine”' with me, in a strong Irish accent, with the greatest condescension. This ceremony-finding, I presume, the liquor to his taste-he repeated more than once. The champagne being excellent (certainly not from the firm of Bloomsbury, Sharpes, and Co.), we all soon became on the most sociable terms ; and the deference with which I was treated by my agreeable entertainer and his guests, and to which, in the company of Jack Raffleton and my own friends, I was totally unaccustomed, was as pleasing as it was unexpected. Cotherstone was a most agreeable man, with a fund of small-talk and anecdote which was invaluable at a dinner-party. Then the whole thing was so exceedingly well done, and the discipline of the servants was so perfect, that not the slightest mistake or contretemps of any kind could occur to spoil the effect of the performance. I believe Mrs. Cotherstone deserved the credit of drilling the domestics, and was fond of the occupation. In after-days, when a great deal that had before been inexplicable was made clear to me, Jack Raffleton told me an anecdote that strongly exemplified the quaint good-humour of my former host. He and Jack were sitting after breakfast in the library, immersed in the computation of a money transaction in which they were jointly engaged, when the footman, in putting coals on the fire, by some unlucky movement brought down fender and fire-irons with an alarum that might have wakened the dead. Jack is not a nervous fellow ; but he assured me that the crash was such, he could not repress the oath that rose to his lips. Not so the master of the house. Looking up from the paper on which he was engaged, with the utmost coolness, and keeping his finger on it to mark his place, he thus addressed the astonished domestic : “ It is lucky for you, my friend, that your mistress was not in the room, or she would have fetched you such a kick in the rear of your person as you would have remembered to the last day of your life ;' and without further remark resumed the abstruse calculations which had been so rudely interrupted. But dinner was at length over. The ladies departed to the drawing-room ; the claret was done ample justice to ; coffee was announced in the “other room ;” and, as we entered the tasteful drawing-room, our ears were greeted by the harmonious notes of the piano-forte, and our eyes indulged with all the nisual arrangements of a properly set-out ecarté-table.

(To be continued).

“THE BAY'S BEAT!”

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY E. CORBET,

Yes, by Jove! there's another cutting it! Up goes his tail and out goes his head, and he's in the next fence for a hundred! The Bay's beat, safe enough !

Some eight or ten years since, a learned authority in one of the sporting periodicals—it doesn't much matter which now-undertook to assure his readers, in declining to give Steeple Chase Calendar, that it was a sport going rapidly out of fashion. Another season or two, and we should witness its utter downfall. Every man that took very high degree as a sportsman said the same thing, and went on saying it, too, for some seasons, until the condemned sport was flourishing every way and everywhere. It had no legitimate support, though the public in thousands flocked to see it ; no gentleman really affected it, though bona fide Peers of the realm were riding neck and neck races against Guards: men, with Brookes' and Boodle's well up at the finish-and die away it must, because it was increasing in interest and attraction day by day.

Still, every sport, like almost everything else, has its turns, good and bad, and the steeple-chase has not been all open-weather sailing. None indeed has had to contend against more difficulties, and none, perhaps, profited less by endeavouring to conquer them. Horses killed or "kilt" only, riders with broken heads or arms, and fields of horses that came home one at a time, went to argue that the line selected was often too strong. Then of course the point became to find a weaker one, a task usually much easier to perform, and accompanied with nothing like the expense of the artificial make-up of the more formidable four miles. From the excess of one evil to another is a too common occurrence, and the steeple-chase authorities have not been altogether proof to this failing. So we were gradually brought to contemplate such a course as Leamington has ere this afforded her aristocrats, or as Epsom produced for her cockney patrons at her last Spring Meeting. Instead of being struck with awe at every succeeding fence, and being lost in admiring wonder as to how each was to be got over, the gentle public began to laugh at so harmless an array, and quiz the high-spirited party brought to ride at it. It was not without reason either, as they saw a field of horses race over a course that could not have stopped a plater, and one, where if they did stop at all, it was from the pace, and not the character of that “ hunting country” the entertained were besought in courtesy to consider as such. It is a great question to us whether the steeplechase has not lost much of its attraction by this means. The poet tells us there is something alluring in the very chance or contemplation of a little danger, and if pressed on the point we should say the steeplechase has lost more by descending so much from its pristine and, to a certain extent, proper condition, than from the sneers of the old school of sportsman, the magnified paragraphs of occasional accident, or even

the promised prize essay of the Royal Humane Society. The steeplechase horse should be tested as a hunter “ all over;" whereas now if he will face a few feet of water and clear a hurdle he is reported “ accomplished,” and nominated accordingly.

This ill-advised or excessive reformation has no doubt been partly produced by another proposed amendment, the original evil being this : In nine chases out of ten, a good or anything like a continued view of them was impossible. You saw the start, or the finish, or both perhaps; or in the other case some especial passage in the essay, and nothing more. Then it naturally came to be inquired how a better view might be obtained, and energetic clerks of courses, with Grand Stands looking down on them, came to fancy a line might be drawn round these deserted mansions. In due time it was so drawn, and the Handicap announced, and filled—visitors charged their crown a-piece to sit or stand, and see the whole contest in comfort. What they did or do see we have already alluded to-a little harmless amusement, no doubt, in which any one might partake " playing at steeple-chasing" if you like to call it so. Playing at this, however, was not considered enough. With the course already roped for the run in, why should there not be a little flat racing to introduce the other? No sooner said than done again—a day or two of one and then a day or two of the other, or indeed now and then a day half-and-half. We have had comparatively plenty of these mixture meetings this season, while as to their effect we think we have all justice for saying that so far steeple-chasing has not for a long time been so badly supported. There is quite as much money as ever, but very few horses, and certainly a lack of “ good" company. The very returns of the different events so “ joined together" read badly and out of sorts, and while the light-weight, trial-stake riding jockey gets on to a season that never ends, his some three or four stone heavier friend for the open handicap is puzzled to find when his begins.

Whether or not from the causes we have named, the steeple-chase season never proceeded, at least up to Christmas, much worse than it has during the present. At every meeting you trace decline; in those noted as established a visible falling off from last year—with others only now started anything but encouragement for them to try again, while with a third class of the resuscitated comes an involuntary comparison between what they were and what they are-quantum mutatus. Short fields, and the same lot of horses, like a band of strolling players, going from one place to another. In fact a review 50 far might be very fairly based on the performances of our old friend the British Yeoman, who runs second here, and third there, and fourth elsewhere, until at last with the turn long looked for, he treats Mr. Mason or Mr. Mason treats him with another winning ride at Southam.

The reading of our steeple-chase scene is, we believe, in sonie conformity with the original practice of the sport. The Bay has evidently been down already, but by some effort just caught his horses again in time to find he cannot go on with them. He dwells terribly on the bit of rising ground, and as taking fast hold of his head is interpreted more as a hint to halt than anything else, the accomplished gentleman on his back for a last chance lets him quite loose to go at the next fence in his own fashion. It is all over now you may be sure, and by the way the others are hugging the flag there would seem to be but one likely