but by the Sphinx which had preceded him at the tea-table. Rushing abruptly out of the room, in search of the hat carefully deposited on a peg in the vestibule, or in hopes that the old-fashioned equipage (in which, on such grand occasions as Tramsyde tea-drinkings, he chose to make his transit from one street to the other) might not have driven from the door, so as to enable him to send home for his butterfly-net, he shuffled back, and began chasing the unhappy insect, which, like all living things thrown out of their sphere, was beating itself alternately against the window-panes and ceiling, while pursuing its natural instincts of activity. You heard its heavy body flap at regular intervals against the glass,-intervals which the disappointed B. B. always managed to miscalculate, giving so hard a blow with his hat to the casement as a sort of echo to the senseless thump of the poor moth, that a catastrophe seemed imminent. One could see the powder disperse from the mealy wings of the moth, every time the naturalist contrived to hit the victim which he failed to capture.

At length, this unequal strife ended in an amnesty, without manifest advantage on either side. The footboy announced Dr. Green, of whose uncompromising quizzing B. B. stood so greatly in awe, that the poor wounded moth was allowed to flutter his jagged wings without further persecution.

It would have been nothing very wonderful, had the merry Doctor espied a quizzable object in the queer little man who, a moment before his entrance, was standing a tip-toe on one of the elbow-chairs, bounding up and down like an India-rubber ball, in hopes of catching the poor Sphinx in the hat with which, as it flitted past, he strove to arrest and imprison the fugitive; so strange a figure did he cut in his speckled silk-stockings and nankeen tights-the complexion of both sadly impaired by a very long series of ablutions. He hopped nimbly down from the chair, however, and pretended to be making most obsequious acquaintance with myself as Green drew near ;-as a cover to the shame of being caught moth-catching at the moment when he ought to have been more rationally employed with tea or toast, or tea and tabbies.

Dr. Green was a man of the most comic contour and countenance, except Buckstone's, I ever looked upon. He seemed made to be laughed at; and being a man of excellent sense, in addition to his globose outline, wisely determined to throw the first stone at himself, and have his laugh with the rest of the world. The only difficulty was to reconcile so very grave a profession as physic with his jocular propensities. Doctors have been the cause of wit in others, from the days of Molière down to those of Sterne; but it is not always safe in them to join in the fun. Not but that Green, when real sickness or sorrow predominated, could be as earnest and serviceable as the gravest of his tribe. But he would laugh at his nervous patients, and quiz his hypochondriacs; and nervous people will not endure being laughed at. Dr. Green protested that it served to put them in a passion-a less disagreeable visitation than being out of spirits. But the sense of the town, that is its want of sense, was against him. It was whispered in confidence, from house to house, that his yearly income would be considerably increased by an increase of gravity. Above all, he delighted in venting his jocularity upon B. B., Pope of this parish. Both

were bachelors, both thriving ones; the physician, thanks to an excellent practice in the neighbourhood; the Pope, thanks to an indedendent income of twelve hundred per annum. Twelve hundred per annum was a prince's revenue at Welstanton. It enabled his Infallibility to keep a pair of fat coach-horses and a fat coachman as a setoff against Dr. G.'s smart gig and knowing groom. It enabled him to distinguish himself by two dinner-parties, falling about the winter and summer solstice, in opposition to the snug little oyster-suppers of the merry Doctor.

Two old bachelors, in easy circumstances, in a country-town without a navigable river, a canal, or a barrack-yard! But for them,how the conversation of the morning visits would have stagnated! But for them, what a lack of inuendoes,

Of nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,

among the spinsters of the place! There was Miss Marx, the agent's daughter an heiress. There were the three Graces of the Mayor. But above all, there were the two ladies of the manor. It was amusing to hear the different inflexions of voice with which the gossips of Welstanton severally whispered, "Miss Sybella Tramsyde? Believe me, Mr. Brighthelmstone has no thoughts of Miss Sybella!" or "Miss Martha? as if Dr. Green would think of Miss Martha!" some being of opinion that the two mature Lovelaces, charming as they were, must not presume to lift their ambition to the last branch of one of the oldest families in the county; others penetrated with the notion that two Clarissas who had survived to such very mature spinsterhood, had better continue to hang like icicles on Dian's temple for the remainder of their days.

Whether that auspicious tea-drinking, with its "breath of hawthorns, lapse of streams, and tune of chaffinches," had any influence in melting the icicles and attenerating the obdurate hearts of the venerable damsels, it is useless to conjecture. The scandalous chronicle of Welstanton, I admit, presumed to hint that the coquetry of the young visiter, who, to her shame be it spoken, did find some little amusement in flirting with the Pope and rendering the punster serious during that solemn festivity, was not without its share in hastening the catastrophe which shortly afterwards converted the attendance of the doctor into the devotion of a partner for life; and inaugurated the charming Sybella among the curiosities of the museum of B. B.'s Vatican.

On this knotty point, it is impossible for me to decide; seeing that, a few days after the tea-party, my grim hostess, aided by the optics of the green-eyed monster, discovered that it was indispensable to commence the repapering and repainting of the rooms devoted to my use; and to the great relief of my ennui and their own anxieties, my visit was accordingly brought to an untimely end.

The finale of the courtship I was forbidden to witness;-the only intimation I received of the great event, being a double portion of wedding-cake, accompanied by a double allowance of favours, announcing a double wedding in the Tramsyde family, which, I conclude, must have afforded an eighteen days' wonder and delight to the astonished inhabitants of THE COUNTRY TOWN.

FOREIGN SPORTING.

BY NIMROD.

BOULOGNE RACES AND FETE, AND VARIOUS OTHER MATTERS ABROAD AND AT HOME.

No one who had not witnessed them could form anything like a correct notion of what he could see and hear at Boulogne races.

For example: On the first day of those just now passed, he would have seen at least a hundred and fifty carriages-some of them really well turned out by both French and English coachmen-and thousands of well-dressed persons in the stands and on foot; but for what purpose was this vast assemblage? Why, simply to have these words fall lightly and politely on the ear-viz., "a fine day, though rather cold; but are we to have no racing? Two trainers were ten minutes too late at the mairie, for the purpose of entering their horses and paying their stakes, which disqualifies their horses from starting; and the owner of another, who had entered him for a selling plate, refuses to run his horse unless the owner of the second horse will promise not to claim him if he wins, which he is as sure to do as he is a horse, if he does not tumble down.

The consequence of this was, three walks over, and one horse cantering in at his pleasure for the fourth prize, beating his opponent by as many lengths as his jockey thought proper to let him.

Now all the remark I made on those several matters was, that, as regarded the last mentioned, if a gentleman thinks his horse worth more than the sum awarded in a selling plate, together with the amount of the stakes, he had better not enter him at all, inasmuch as it may prevent other horses being entered; and as regarded the first, that if these two trainers had been asked to solve a problem in Euclid, an excuse might have been made for their failing in the attempt; but it is difficult to account for such ignorance of their duties, or stupidity, as they were this day guilty of.

I have another observation to offer on the subject of the only gallop that the public were this day favoured with: namely, between the Count D'Hédouville's Astonishment, and Mr. Quick's Black Bess.

The reporter of the Sunday Times says, in his remarks on this race, in allusion to an objection to the winner receiving the stakes, that "it appears that, according to the laws of racing in France, it is necessary the winning horse should be produced at the weighing-stand on the termination of the race. This Count D'Hédouville omitted; and when the opposite party demanded that the horse should be brought up, it was discovered that he had been sent off the ground. Mr. Quick hereupon claimed the stakes for Black Bess, on the plea that Astonishment had forfeited his right to them by not coming up to the scales after the race. The matter was referred to the stewards, who, to the surprise of everybody acquainted with the rules of the French turf, decided in favour of Astonishment. It would be difficult for a stranger

to conceive how those gentlemen could have given their judgment in the teeth of an established law."

Now the difficulty here is to account for any person, undertaking to report a race, being so ignorant of racing as not to know that not only in France, but in all countries, the winning horse (as all others in the race) is produced at the weighing-place on the termination of the race. And as for the objection in the case alluded to, the fact was this: Astonishment was led away by the boy before his jockey got out of the scales: he might have waited till he was pronounced to have brought in his weight; but the horse being taken away as he was, could have had no other effect than his jockey not having been allowed to call for his bridle, had he been too light in the scale. At Boulogne, however, where weight is allowed for the bridle, this taking away the horse after the jockey is in the scale is of no moment, and I myself was one of the persons appealed to, to do away with the objection raised against him as the winner.

The second day's racing was something better. At all events there were two good heats for the Gold Cup; and so good, indeed, as to require the best use of my eyes to judge the winner between Monsieur Santerre's Ophelia, by Shakspeare, 5 yrs old, and Count D'Hédouville's Astonishment, 3 yrs old, the young one getting 26lbs from the old one. The other two races were failures, and I forbear to offer any remarks on the ludicrous exhibition of the dragoons in their new character of contenders for the honours of the race-course, further than that I should like to watch the countenances of two or three of our colonels-commandant of cavalry, on its being proposed to them, that their men should ride their troop-horses in a race.

One lesson, however, was read by this spectacle to those Frenchmen who think substance in horses everything, and pure blood worse than nothing. By a mistake, some of the horses went more than double the distance they were intended to go, and a pretty figure they made when they came to the finish of their course. I saw two of them so exhausted that they could scarcely stand on their legs, and one actually fell from the same cause.

The weather on the third day, together with some encouragement given by the two well-contested races of the previous one, attracted a large assemblage; but notwithstanding the Sunday Times reporter pronounces it to have been the best day of the three, I, as judge, pronounce it second best, and miserably bad. But how is it he has made Sir Richard Jephson's Reindeer winner of the Hurdle Race, whereas he was beat in a canter by Mr. Bushell's Festival, late Dick? In spite of the fine riding of Mr. Oliver, he could do nothing against Festival, a fine hunting-like horse for Leicestershire, admirably ridden by Mr. Simons.*

The Handicap was also a poor race, for which I have myself in part to answer, as one of the handicappers. It would be seen, however, that we made the winner, a three-year old, give one aged mare 10lbs. (I proposed 12lbs. but was overruled), and another 5 lbs., and yet all would not do, as Monsieur Santerre's The Maid was an easy winner.

What does the said reporter mean in saying that," at the third hurdle, Festival began to flag, and broke in taking his leaps?""

I will never again, however, assist in handicapping a race-horse which I had never seen, as was the case with The Maid. It won't do to listen merely to what he or she may have done; and as Lord Maidstone justly observed, The Maid, by her appearance and action, should be better employed than in running a mile and a half over Boulogne racecourse. She appeared short of neck, but all over like a racer.

I now dismiss Boulogne races with observing, that, unless matters mend, there will soon be an end to them; there was no lack of money to be run for, but a great want of horses. And looking at them as the means of encouraging the breed of horses in France-their principal object, we may presume-they are altogether a failure, for reasons which I am enabled to produce; and as this article is certain to be tranferred from the pages of the New Monthly Magazine to those of the Revue Britannique, I will read Frenchmen wishing to improve the horses of their country a short lesson on that important subject.

With the exception of the localities of Chantilly, Paris, and Versailles, which may rank with our Epsom, Doncaster, and Ascot, almost all prizes given with the view of ameliorating the breed of horses, so inuch called for in France-should be open only to horses bred in the department in which the race-meeting takes place, and likewise for two and three-year old colts and fillies, having one good cup-race, as also a handicap (and one hurdle-race if approved of) at each meeting, for horses of all ages and countries. Men of small incomes, however inclined to breed racing-stock, will not do it in France, unless they can bring them to the post, as we do in England, at two and three years old, and thereby have a prospect of an early return for their outlay of capital in breeding them. It is evidently the intention of the government, as well as of his Royal Highness the Duke of Orleans, to improve the breed of French horses by promoting racing; but they have not as yet gone the right way to work.

For example: the government gives two thousand francs in two prizes every year at Boulogne, for horses foaled in the northern division of France, thereby including those foaled in the neighbourhood of Paris, where all the best studs are established-thus discouraging a local breeder from an attempt to compete with them, for some time to come at least. The Duke also gives a thousand francs for a hurdlerace, open to all horses; and he has done so for some years past. But what advantage has here accrued to France? Horses have arrived from England a day or two before the appointed time, and their owners have carried back the prizes, both at Boulogne and St. Omer, without a French-bred horse starting for either of them.

I know but one breeder of race-horses in this part of France, and he is not a Frenchman, who has ever won a hurdle-race and kept the winner in the country. He won it with a good sort of a mare, thoroughbred and strong (the sort of animal, in short, to be desired in any country), from which he afterwards bred by the celebrated horse Lottery, late Clinker, now in the government-stud in Paris, and she is again with foal by him.

Were the government and his Royal Highness to divide the three thousand francs which they give, together with the King's Plate, only into four distinct prizes-namely, one for two-year old colts and fillies, thoroughbred; another for those of two and three-year old, also