this class to be seen daily in the Row are sacked for perfect animals of this class for the worth at least £250 each.

London market. High action is chiefly sought On the other hand, our carriage horses are, after and perfection of match. For a pair of however, entirely our own. The splendid park ponies, three hundred guineas is a price animals sixteen hands high, we see on draw-readily obtained. When "Anonyma" first ing-room days lining Pall-mall, St. James's started this fashion, the dealers little estimated Street, and lost in the distance of Albemarle their value; indeed, the Chancellor of the ExStreet, are of the pure Yorkshire breed. chequer having withdrawn their exemption They are purchased by the London dealers at from the horse-tax, their diminutive size, inHowden and Horncastle Fairs, and the market stead of enhancing their value, rather deis wholly in their hands, as the breeders will tracted from it, and the breed would possibly not sell individual horses, but lots of tens and have died out. This new whim, however, thirties, fine-paced animals and second-class was a perfect godsend to them. The reader nags, which the dealers afterward separate. will not be a little astonished to hear that our This would not suit a private purchaser, any leading fashionables have started a Lady's more than it would to bid for a lot at an Pony Club, and just as the four-in-hands auction for the sake of some solitary article jingle along in procession to the Star and contained in it. By this means, the dealers Garter, so the lady-whips, with their highwholly monopolize the market, and of course stepping ponies, their parasols mounted on they make noblemen and gentlemen pay for their whips, fancy gauntlets, and white ribthe more select animals. The favorite color bons, trot down to the same locality in a is dark-brown, mottled with a still darker bright line to eat "maids of honor." shade of the same color, and with black legs. The gray ponies in the royal stud are also For a pair of perfect steppers such as these, another testimony to the growing taste for £1,000 is by no means an out-of-the-way small, compact animals. As we shall show price. It often happens that two carriage- in a future article, these ponies are one of horses may be perfect matches in all respects the leading features of the royal stables. but their tails. The one may have a fine The Highland rambles of the young princes flowing caudal appendage, and the other may and princesses first necessitated this addibe curtailed of his fair proportions. In such tion to the Queen's stables, and now it would a case the fashion with horses is pretty much appear to be continued from choice, as the as it is with our fashionable fair at the pres- Prince of Wales invariably, when driving ent moment: if nature is not prodigal of this himself, employs these sturdy gray cobs, ornament, art is called in,-the lady pur- whose superb action must be well known to chases her Alexandra ringlet, which so negli- those accustomed to see him driving down gently flows over her shoulder, at Trufits, the Kew Road on his way to Frogmore. the groom matches the flowing mane with an Weight-carrying cobs have long been favorequally flowing tail. The false tail is cun-ite animals in this country; but of late the ningly placed on in the following manner: The caudal stump is shaved, and the false hair is fitted on to it by the crupper, and detection is as impossible with respect to hairdressing of the horse, as we all know it is with that of the ladies. There is scarcely a first-class stable in London, where many carriage horses are kept, that these false tails are not an absolute necessity of their getting up, and they may be seen hanging on the walls as a matter of course, and are looked upon, in short, as only a part of the har

demand for them has been so much on the increase that they can scarcely be got for love or money. Country gentlemen rising fourteen stone, and wanting something quiet, will give any money for them. We see now and then one of these fast-walking cobs making his way over the tan in Rotten Row at a spanking pace, with an old gentleman on his back whose size is enough to make the looker-on perspire. Yet the little cob, with his splendid deep shoulder and strong legs, is as firm under him as a castle. There is a very strong dash of the Suffolk punch in all The latest fashion of the day is the pony of these well-bred cobs. Two hundred and mania. No lady of ton is now complete with- fifty guineas is often obtained by the London out her park phacton and her couple of high-dealers for a sound specimen of this muchstepping ponies. The country has been ran- sought-for class of animal. The little Shet

ness.

land pony, as shaggy as a bear, and not much | and it is not etiquette to possess horses that bigger than a Newfoundland dog, is fast dis- have figured in other equipages. The conappearing from the ride. We used to see sequence is, that they inevitably fall into the him often with his double panniers filled hands of the omnipresent English dealer, with rosy children swaying about, but of ever on the look-out for good horse-flesh in late years not so frequently. The fact is, all the capitals of Europe. this diminutive race is dying out fast, and even in the Shetland Islands he is now a comparatively rare` animal. The Exmoor pony is more than taking his place. This, the last remnant of the indigenous British horse, is now becoming a famous breed.

Some forty years ago this hardy little animal

From The Spectator. MR. SENIOR.

THE death of Mr. Nassau Senior, which

occurred last week, is a real loss to the polit

ical world. He belonged to a class which, we

was crossed with Arab blood, and by rigidly adhering to selection of fine animals for the believe, scarcely exists out of England, the breeding-stock, some rare ponies are now find-politicians who are never "in" politics, who ing their way to the market. These animals do not stand for boroughs, or strive for office, from the time of being foaled run absolutely or harangue mobs, or intrigue for court fáwild over the hills and dales of Exmoor, or at least that portion of it which has been surrounded by forty miles of wall by the late Mr. Knight, of Simons Bath; consequently, they are splendid in wind and limb, and when caught and sold by auction are absolutely free from those weaknesses which are inseparable from horses reared and confined in hot stables. The size of these animals has been much increased by the Arab blood, and they now average twelve hands, with small, well-made heads and fine limbs,-spirited | forgetting the infinite mass of forces, interlittle fellows just suited for boys' riding, or for the pony-phaeton in which they are now so often found.

vor, or fight for municipal dictatorships, but who, nevertheless, make of politics the cardinal interest of their lives. These are the men who watch society, and think out problems, and accumulate that wealth of facts and ideas which is the substratum of every line of action deserving the name of a policy, the manure out of which systems grow. They have very often the drawback of reasoning too much à priori, of treating human beings as if they were reasoning chessmen, or

ests, and prejudices which we sum up in politics as in social life under the word habit; but they are free, on the other hand, from The revival of the Four-in-hand Club brings selfish interests, and sometimes singularly back a glimpse of the days of George IV., devoid of prejudice. Indeed, the only docbut with this peculiarity,—many of the drags trinaire feeling universal among them is haare horsed with Russian horses. The splen- tred of doctrinaires. The head and chief of did turnout of the Duke of Sutherland is the class, so much beyond all others that he thus conspicuous. The dense crowds that scarcely seems to belong to it, is Mr. J. surround the drags as they are rendezvousing Stuart Mill; but Mr. Senior's place, though for the start in the park, are no doubt at- in the ranks, was by no means a mean one. tracted by souvenirs of the old coaching days, We do not mean that in his ostensible occuwhen the mails trotted out of St. Martin's-pation he added very much to their strength; le-Grand on the real business of the country. for he did not. He was a good, in one way A great drain of English first-class horses a very good, political economist; but his is always going on to supply the wants of the mind being essentially receptive,—the reason Parisians. In fact, some of the equipages why Mr. Senior never left on casual acquaintof the French capital are not in the least ances any impression of power, he did not behind those of the metropolis. The only add much to the science. He only explained difference is, that where Paris can show a it, made of scientific truths popular truisms, score of such, we possess a hundred. All convinced the youth who were ultimately to the best carriage horses, however, purchased govern England that there were such things from us return again sooner or later, as the as economic laws, that the relation of demand Parisians of fashion never purchase of each and supply was, for instance, as much a fact other. Every man's stud is well known, as gravitation, or the inability of water to

run of itself up-hill. He had great felicity | a very large circle of acquaintances and very of illustration, and sometimes showed a fee- good, introductions, a knowledge of two or bleness, a want of ability to catch the afflu- three languages, and no sense of shyness in ents of his subject which made the thin cen- his whole nature, Mr. Senior used to wantre stream all the stronger and more clear. der abroad and pass months in asking quesHis true function in life was a different but tions of all " competent authorities." That a valuable one, and it is with no idea of dis- may not seem a very difficult task, and it is respect that we describe him as a political not but; to make such inquisitiveness useful funnel. A good funnel is a most useful ar- requires faculties which are not too plentiful ticle, and Mr. Senior was simply the best in in the world. In the first place, the questhe world. tioner must know what to ask,-have the caThere is no task in the whole range of pacity for cross-examination, or the result of political work so difficult as that of enabling his labor will be merely a deluge of words. Englishmen to comprehend the motives, ideas, Then he must be able to discriminate among and objects which govern any other race than answers, to know which of many is likely to their own. They understand what other be the more approximately true from the races say, and catch the drift of their acts speaker's locus standi. Then he must excite very intelligently; but those unspoken in-personal confidence, or the real "authoristincts which govern national policy they ties" will either never open their lips, or never can perceive. They cannot do it even talk the sort of platitudes which an ordinary when the veil of a separate language is re- politician would extract from a cabinet minmoved, and prognosticate American action, ister when he had him by the button. Mr. for instance, without any certainty whether Senior had a very remarkable tact in this the professed love for the Monroe doctrine is way. The people he talked to usually knew a genuine fecling, or only a bit of buncombe. very well that he would write all their anThroughout this Schleswig-Holstein affair swers down, and talked just a little on stilts; they have failed to apprehend the German but still they knew also that he could be feeling in the matter, as it appears to Ger- trusted, that he would not make life unpleasmans themselves. They see clearly enough ant for them by his indiscretions, and spoke that the impelling power is a sentiment rath- out very frankly indeed. There are records er than a policy; they perceive that the re-in existence, for example, among Mr. Sesult of that sentiment is the partial dismem-nior's manuscripts which involve half the berment of Denmark, and they feel that what- celebrities of France, records in one way alever the motive, the action menaces all the most inestimable; but the speakers knew smaller nations of Europe. But they have that, though recorded, their ideas would have not, nevertheless, apprehended the sentiment no premature publication, and spoke careitself, its sources, or its justification, do not fully, perhaps, but still with a good deal of yet believe that Germans, however unjustly, courage, as to a man whose first want was feel for Schleswig, as Italians feel for Vene- to know their opinions. People's vanity tia. So in France, the gust of opinion which was somehow enlisted in his favor; the desire every now and then sweeps over Frenchmen, of indoctrinating a clever stranger with parbowing all individual judgments as the wind ticular views prevailed over social fear, and bows the corn, massing without combining men talked in 1859 as freely as if no coup them, always strikes the English public as d'état had occurred, and of things they would an unexpected phenomenon, as something bite out their tongues to read five years aftermeteoric, which they can watch and record wards. Above all, it is essential for a queswith interest, but of which they can obtain tioner of this kind to be really impartial,—-imno previous information. The object of Mr. partial in a very high and unusual degree. Senior's best efforts was to remove this igno- He not only must not wish for particular anrance, to make of himself a kind of conduc-swers, for in that case he will only elicit one tor, and to transmit rays from the foreign to side of the truth, but he must be perfectly the British intelligence. The method he willing to follow up the train of thought adopted for this end was a little peculiar, suggested by the answer he did not expect. and probably could not have been attempted The impartiality which comes of mental by any differently constituted mind. With training will not suffice for this work; for,

however complete, it usually coexists with snippeting spoils Mr. Senior's work,-have

an important influence over public opinion. We quote these books because they have been pretty widely circulated; but the cream of Mr. Senior's collections is still contained in manuscripts which have in one form or another, by their confidential circulation, or the use of extracts, or by dribbling through ephemeral publications, largely contributed to mould opinion. As to the direction of that opinion Mr. Senior, we imagine, was not very anxious. What he wished was to accumulate facts and other men's opinions on facts, to make Englishmen understand foreign lines of thought, not to burden his own impartiality with troublesome convictions, and usually the strongest idea he would express was that the “balance of evidence inclined him to believe" something, it might be remarkable, but usually very ordinary. He was not so much a political savan as curator of a museum for political savans, and as such was a man who will be more missed by those whom he lived among than many an able ideologue. ·

combativeness, with a disposition to crossexamine the unexpected answer much more closely than the expected one. The mind must be, in fact, colorless, yet with infinite capacity for receiving impressions of color, a sort of mind very scarce, perhaps only to be found in a man who was at once intelligent, devoid of passionate convictions, interested in all topics, and a Master in Chancery. Mr. Senior possessed all these qualifications, and the result of their use is best seen in his book upon Greece. He had in that book to convey to Europeans the best information many other Europeans and a few Greeks could give him about a population which has very little of the European in it. He has done it,—done it so that no man not a long resident in Greece could read that little book -for Mr. Senior was a wonderful maker of literary pemmican-without feeling that he had learnt more about Greece and Greek wants and Greek opinions and Greek chances than all other reading had ever taught him. The deductions to be drawn from the teaching may of course vary with different minds; to ours it seems to be that Greece wants a preliminary stage of Cæsarism, and to be a little bigger, but that is not the point. The gain to the reader is not a dogma struck out for him by a man of genius or great practical statesman, but the means of mak-writings, and the interest in the writer creing up his own mind as fully as if he had resided in Greece, of forming an opinion on Athenian doings as he would form one on doings in Manchester. Mr. Senior does not draw pictures; but he lifts up the fog, so that if you are a painter, you can sketch for your self; if not, can at all events see. Yet whatever the deduction he draws, the reader is still quite satisfied that that was not the deduction Mr. Senior particularly wished him to draw. There is the same power exhibited, though in an inferior degree, in the "Notes on Egypt now publishing. Mr. Senior was fettered in that country by his inability to communicate with men of the pure Oriental type, Turks and Egyptians not varnished over with the European whitewash which is called in the Levant" civilization,' -and was obliged to repeat the opinions of people who were all observers from one particular point of view. Yet the information obtained is immense, and will, we suspect, when published in a readable form,- for

From The Saturday Review. TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. *

THE great popularity of Mr. Prescott's

ated by the vague accounts, which were current, of the physical incapacity under which he labored, justify his friends in thinking that they ought not to leave a life like his without its memorial. His friends, too, were warm in their affections for him, and strong in their admiration both of his goodness and

his powers. He was a man, apparently, of unusually attractive and winning character,sides confidence in his kindliness and sympamanly, spirited, and honest, inspiring on all thy, hearty in his enjoyments, and very unselfish and genial. It is not surprising, therefore, that a friend like Mr. Ticknor, who

had learned to value him while he was still unknown, and had watched him rise into fame, should think that his biography would

bear a somewhat full treatment. Mr. Ticknor has produced a large and handsome book, which, in its appearance and illustrations, is *The Life of William Hickling Prescott." By George Ticknor. Boston Ticknor and Fields. 1864.