they have strength to carry their burden, and a docility of temper that is remarkable.* The town of Calais, at this time, presents an amusing, although somewhat of an extraordinary scene. A shipload of horses arrives daily from Dover, in part of a contract entered into by Mr. Elmore, the celebrated London dealer, to supply the French government with two thousand five hundred horses by the end of December next, and about four hundred of the number have already arrived, and been passed by one of the inspecting Colonels. Having had the honour of the Colonel's acquaintance, the entrée to the inspection in the barracks has been granted to me, and I am in consequence enabled to pronounce them excellent, although rather a severe judge of horse-flesh. By the word severe, I mean to imply, that he now and then rejects a horse which would not be refused for the English cavalry, some of his objections being such as might be looked for in horses for which the mere government regulation price is given, after they have been transported from their own country into this, and at no small expense. For example: I saw him refuse a fine strapping five-year old mare, equal to great weight, merely because she had something like an incipient curb on one of her hinder legs. Why, a Melton Mowbray groom smiles at curbs. He and all his brethren have a recipe that kills them at two or three dressings-the horse continuing to work at the same time that the cure is being perfected. The inspecting Colonels-for there are two-although the one I have before alluded to takes the lead, are accompanied by Monsieur Bercher, a veterinary surgeon of great experience, and standing very high in his profession. Previously to their action being exhibited, he examines the horses under a shed, in the presence of the Colonels, and his quick and experienced eye instantly detects anything likely to produce unsoundness. It, however, would appear strange to Englishmen present, to observe, that not once in twenty inspections does he lift up a foot to look at the state of it, satisfying himself, I presume, of its soundness, by its external formation. He has a clever instrument for taking the measure of a horse's foot, for his shoes, which is quite new to me. Mr. Elmore has credit for this bold undertaking—for a bold one it is, to furnish two thousand five hundred horses within the space of about three months, and subject for a fine for each horse contracted for and not furnished within the time. And I must do him further credit in saying, that as far as I have yet seen of the sort of horse he has produced, he has done justice to his employers, for they are strong, very sound, and as good-looking as they could be expected to be for the money. In fact, had not the railroads diminished the demand for road coach-horses, such animals, young and sound as they are, could not have been procured for the money given for them. A conversation between the late King George the Fourth, and his Grace the Duke of Wellington, on the relative merits of French and English cavalry, is well known to the military circles. "Our cavalry is very superior to the French," said the King. "The French cavalry is very good, sire," continued the Duke. There is one circumstance respecting this transaction on the part of the French government which surprises me, and this is, the insisting upon the horses being brought to Calais to be inspected and passed. Mr. Elmore offered to deduct five pounds per head, in the case of their having been inspected in London, and two pounds if at Dover. Several of those refused have already been sold at more than the government price; many are gone to Paris, where, after being made fresh and fat, they will sell for as much again, and no doubt the neighbourhoods of Calais and Boulogne will not lose the chance of picking up some useful horses, mares especially, out of those which the judges refuse. Perhaps it has been with a view to prevent this being done to the injury of the breeders in their neighbourhoods, that a silly report has gone abroad, of the horses in question being German horses; but let one consider the expense of importing them from such a distant country, and the falsehood of it is apparent. I now and then hear an objection raised against the permission given by our country to the exportation of these horses, especially so, as it was refused by others. To this I answer, that the withdrawing of two or three thousand of our inferior horses and mares from Great Britain, is a mere drop from the ocean, as regards our own wants; and may be looked upon as a relief to the horse-market, consequently to the agricultural world at a moment when relief is wanted. It must be recollected that by far the greater part of the sires and dams of these young horses (most of them three-year-olds), are still remaining in England, producing more, and that the brothers and sisters to those exported will soon fill their places. There may be some truth in asserting, that the French nation may profit by the produce of the many English mares they will get into their country by this contract being fulfilled; still it is in vain to imagine, that now that the effects of racing in France are being, as they are, made apparent through the influence of the government and the press, but without our aid in the case alluded to, the horses of France must improve. The very quickening the rate of the mails and the diligences alone will do it; for even the French people, in their universally fast times, will no longer submit to be nearly forty hours on the road from Calais to Paris (only 165 miles), which was the case not three years back. Twenty-six hours now is the time allowed; and the diligences keep good time, unless much opposed by weather, which must have a powerful effect on such ponderous machines.* Those of your readers who take interest in racing matters, and no doubt you have many such, may like to hear how they have been progressing this past season in Germany. The great lion of the year has been the Count Plessen (of whose late father I spoke in my German tour, as the owner of five hundred horses and fifteen hundred cows), with No people that I have ever come in contact with, appear to bear with such patience the sufferings imposed on them in travelling, equally with the French. Many of my readers will recollect an anecdote I mentioned on this subject. I was travelling by a diligence which stood still for twenty minutes to enable a butcher to kill a pig which was to be conveyed by it to a neighbouring town. Not a murmur against the delay was heard from the passengers, although it caused the loss of their dinner, which were almost all devoured by the time we arrived at the inn at which we were to have dined. two horses-one a three-year-old, by Prince Llewellyn (late the property of the Hon. G. L. Mostyn) out of Brilliant, and the other a four-year-old, by Morisco, which have beaten everything opposed to them. Amongst other prizes, the Llewellyn colt won the Union Stakes at Berlin, value 1000 louis-d'or. He also won the King's Plate, value 200 louis-d'or, and the two-year-old stakes with a colt by Fang. A friend at Aix-la-Chapelle gives me this information respecting a racing-meeting in Germany, of which I had not before heard. "I was about six weeks ago," he says, "at the Dusseldorf races. There are only three persons there who at all take the thing up as yet. Count Hatzfeld, who lives in the neighbourhood, has eight thoroughbred mares, and of course their produce, together with other young stock bought last year in England, and a stud horse called Pigeon, which belonged to the Société Vervieloise (near Brussels), which I do not think much of. There are, besides, a Count Westphalen, Lieutenant Hahnfeld, and a Dutch Baron of the name of Heekeven, whose horses you may have seen run at Brussels. His were decidedly the best at the meeting. Racing, however, in that part of the world, is only in its infancy; and unless the stakes are made more valuable, it will be slow of growth. I dined, when in Brunswick, with Count Veltheim, at his fine seat at Harbke, who expressed himself much pleased with what you had said of him as a sportsman in the New Monthly Magazine. He has given up breeding race-horses, which is now chiefly in the hands of Count Gneisenau and Count Alvensleben." I give this passage respecting Dusseldorf merely to show how racing is making its appearance in places likely to be suited to it, inasmuch as from what I have heard of the place in question, it cannot be well adapted for breeding race-horses, from the severity of the winter season. A POPULAR FALLACY. "When you are eating, leave off hungry." Do no such thing. Supposing your Appetite to be honest and hearty, no pampered craving for delicacies, but a natural demand for wholesome food-why then, no shabby instalments, no ounce-inthe-pound compositions with Hunger-pay in full. The claim of the stomach is a just one, and let it be handsomely satisfied. The constitution, physical or moral, must be peculiar, that can derive either comfort or benefit from perpetual dunning. Leave off hungry!-Pshaw-as well say when you are washing yourself leave off. There is only one reasonable reason that can be urged in favour of thus bringing a meal to an "untimely end"-namely, that you cannot get enough to eat. In such a case, Necessity makes the rule absolute, and you may leave off as "hungry as a hunter" who has not caught his hare. But will the whole Joint before you-eat your fill? As for the Rule, there is only one maxim of the kind that is worth anything: namely, when you are dying, leave off alive. T. H. 253) THE SUICIDE'S BURIAL. (NARRATIVE OF AN ACTUAL OCCURRENCE.) By * "Quod si tu multa pati posse negabis, æternum ignis cruciatum ferre quuî poteris? De duobus malis semper minus est eligendum. Ut ergo æterna illa futura supplicia evadas, mala præsentia pro Deo æquo animo ferre studeto." THOMAS A KEMPIS. On the night of the 31st of December, 182-, I made one of a gay and animated party at the house of a friend in Castle-street, St. Though in the invitation I had received nothing to that effect had been intimated, it was, I believe, the intention of our host, and the majority of his guests, to bid farewell to the Old, and welcome to the New Year, in this festive manner. For myself I had other intentions; and when prevailed upon to attend the party, I did not fail to inform my friend that circumstances, which it were needless then to particularise, rendered it desirable I should withdraw some time at least before midnight. My reasons for this apparent singularity (as I learn them from my diary) were as follows: Firstly, I wished to hail the birth of the Young Year in the silence and privacy of my chamber; and lastly, I did not care to infringe upon a long-established habit of night-reading; the more so as I had that day purchased at a book-sale a curious old folio copy of "The Anatomie of Melancholy"-till then known to me only by report, and which I was therefore impatiently burning to enjoy. "Ten minutes to twelve," exclaimed I, as, adjusting my cloak for departure, I looked at the dial in the hall; "let me walk ever so fast, I shall scarcely be home in time." Little did I then think that ere I should arrive there, hours would have passed, and I should have taken part in a mournful procession in honour of the dead. As I entered upon the dark street, and the door, closing behind me, cut off a stream of light so brilliant, as to nearly rival that of daythe contrast between the artificial splendour created by man for his enjoyment, and the deep gloom of nature at this season, did not fail to strike me. Truly, it was a cold and dismal night. The snow, which had fallen three days before, still lay unthawed in the well nigh deserted streets, and on the house-tops; whence the boisterous wind (which, by its loud chanting, seemed to rejoice over the universal desolation) hurled it fiercely down, in chilling and unwelcome showers, upon the belated passenger. The dense black clouds hung heavily upon the city, and were as impenetrable to vision as the roof of Tartarus. Hence the darkness had been intense, but for the dingy oil-lamps which, flickering faintly at long distances, shed from their smoky globes a doubtful glimmer on the snow beneath, barely sufficient to indicate the path. Noting these inconveniences, but (as I was warmly clad) silently despising them, I hurried homewards. Already I had passed the old cathedral, and was just about to quit the precincts of its close, when the clock commenced striking twelve, "The hour for frightful spectres made." I started! not from any superstitious fear, but from surprise-ten, eleven, TWELVE! The strokes burst so loudly and heavily upon my ear, that, for the instant, I was betrayed from the consciousness of my actual position, and it seemed as though Time himself, hovering aloft, had proclaimed through brazen throat the irrevocable dismissal of the departed year. I stopped involuntarily, and, as if to assure myself of the futility of that impression, looked backwards at the magnificent pile whence the sounds had issued; but so thick was the darkness, that notwithstanding the snow which fringed its battlements and mouldings, I was scarcely able to define its masses against the sky. Upon the nerves of few doth the knell of the defunct year fall lightly and comfortably; upon the hearts of many it smites fiercely, with a voice louder and more awful than the voice of thunder. The reflection that another link is drawn of that frail and brief chain, whence we hang suspended over the gulf of Eternity, will obtrude itself, receive it how we may. That incorruptible part which informs and animates this earthly leaven, and which the perpetual assaults of domineering or rebellious passions can never wholly vanquish, will seize with avidity a moment thus marked with more than ordinary distinction, to assert its heavenly prerogative, and vindicate its claim to attention. It is then the checquered vista of the past appears in the most painful or pleasing colours; it is then vain speculations as to what may yet await us in the dark womb of futurity are indulged in; it is then resolutions of amendment are made, that we may thereby quit the complainings of the still small voice within. But I confess such reflections as these did not long occupy me on that night. My mind unconsciously reverted to the splendid scene I had so lately left. The pointed jest, the quick repartee, the delicate and neatly-turned compliment, with the gracious smile of the approving fair, were once more recalled through imagination. The distance I had to traverse was more than half accomplished when, from a narrow lane which entered the street I was then in, at right angles (famous for being the birth-place of Nell Gwynne, the humane and renowned mistress of the Second Charles), a long procession of men and women slowly and silently advanced. In front a huge lantern, containing three candles, was carried on a pole, and many of both sexes present bore similar conveniences of the usual size. By the aid of their light and that of the lamps, I was just enabled to discern in the centre of the crowd, above the heads of the bearers, the dark outlines of a coffin. Upon gaining the middle of the broad street, it halted as if to form afresh, and the men lowered their burden to the ground. I stood petrified with astonishment. A funeral at the dead of night, its solemnities performed by a large and apparently indiscriminate concourse of people, not arrayed in the outward garbs of mourning, but in their ordinary habiliments, staggered me-I could not comprehend |