rightly) of about sixty horses, we were told by the late Mr. Tattersall, that it was the best stud for its extent that he had ever seen in the yard. It was great praise coming from such an authority, and says much for the judgment that had been displayed in the selection. Lord Hopetoun himself went very well during that time; and among his favourites were a chesnut horse, called First Flight, and a remarkably clever grey mare, which would follow or lead over stiff timber like a dog. The Master never interfered with the business of hunting. He expected his servants to do their duty; but beyond directions for drawing, and returning home, he might have been one of the field, so conscientious was his conduct in this respect. His love of Sport was unbounded; no day was too long for him, nor could he go to hounds too often, as may be readily conceived, when we remember that he was always to be seen with the Quorn on the one occasion in the week on which his own hounds did not go out. That love of hunting has clung to Lord Hopetoun, and clings to him to the present day with a tenacity almost unparalleled. When living at Lubenham, before his voyage to Egypt, which he undertook for Lady Hopetoun's health, he usually hunted every day; and distance and weather (excepting frost) held out no perils to him. We have known him desert a good pack of hounds in a bad country, only six miles distant from his house, in torrents of rain, to meet Mr. Tailby in a good country twenty-three miles off; being fully rewarded for his perseverance by a good run. In fact, without multiplying instances, as a genuine lover of foxhunting, and wedded to it in spite of any obstacle, we believe Lord Hopetoun to be facile princeps.

We have already said that Lord Hopetoun was well horsed during his Mastership of the Pytchley. He has always been so, for two reasons. He is himself an excellent judge of a hunter, and he is indifferent to price when he finds what he wants. He is a very dangerous competitor to meet at the hammer. Perhaps the best stud he ever had at one time was the one he broke up when he went to the East. He once left a commission with a friend to purchase four horses at Tattersall's, leaving with him a cheque for sixteen hundred guineas, six hundred and thirty of which went to purchase Brown Stout. This horse was sold at the time we have mentioned, and passed into Lord Spencer's hands, but Lord Hopetoun has bought him back again, and delights in him as much as ever. He is probably the best hunter in England for a certain weight, and won the prize at the Agricultural Show when the property of Lord Spencer. At the sale of the last-mentioned nobleman three weeks ago, Lord Hopetoun bought Darius, giving three hundred and twenty guineas for him. He was, if not the best, certainly very close upon it; and as he must have known most of them Lord Hopetoun could scarcely have made a

mistake.

Since his return from the East Lord Hopetoun has purchased some land in the neighbourhood of Market Harborough, on which he has built a house and stabling. He has been long in that part of the

country, and it would be difficult to find a situation possessing greater facilities for his favourite sport. In everything connected with it his management is excellent, and his liberality is governed by a personal supervision, worthy of imitation.

The only

For racing, Lord Hopetoun has no taste whatever. Meetings he ever attends are those of Ascot or Goodwood, and then only as a matter of pleasure. It is no small praise to say that having been young in the worst times of plunging, and standing by fortune and position in the middle of temptation, he has imbibed no inclination for the pleasures of gambling. He regards the horse as fitted for a nobler purpose than that of frittering away an estate; and though he never spares him, he never puts him to baser uses than that of following the hounds.

He is also, like many men devoted to sport, a good scholar and an excellent modern linguist, having been much in Paris and various parts of the Continent; and on most subjects is possessed of more than an average amount of information.

He married Etheldred Anne, eldest daughter of Charles Thomas Samuel Birch Reynardson, Esq., of Holywell Hall, Lincolnshire, a gentleman well known to the driving world as an amateur coachman of no mean reputation, by whom he has four children. The heir to the title, Lord Hope, has already begun his sporting career on a clever pony; may he follow in the footsteps of the subject of our notice !

HUNTING SONG.
(For the Ladies.)

BY G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE.

WHEN the early light is stealing
O'er the moorland edge, revealing

All the tender tints of morning, ere she flushes into day.
Then, beneath her window, shaking,
Bit and bridle, while she's waking,

Stands a bonny steed, caparisoned, to bear my love away.
By hill and holt to follow

Hound and horn and huntsman's holloa,

Follow, follow where they lure us, follow, follow as we may

When the chase is onward speeding,
With its boldest spirits leading,

When the red is on the rowel, and the foam is on the rein,
Far in front her form is fleeting,

And her gentle heart is beating,

With the rapture of the revel, as it sweeps across the plain.
Then I press, by dint of riding,

Where my beacon-star is guiding,

And the laggard, spurring fiercely, labours after us in vain.

O'er the open, still carcering,
Fence and furrow freely clearing,

Like the wind of heaven leaving little trace of where we pass,
With that merry music ringing.
Father Time is surely flinging

Golden sand about the moments, as he shakes them from the glass,
Horn and hound are chiming gladly,
Man and horse are vieing madly,

In the glory of the gallop-forty minutes on the grass!

Till by yonder group dismounted,
Group that's quickly told and counted,

Hark! the pack are baying fiercely round their quarry lying dead.
But from eyes that shine so brightly
Such a spectacle unsightly

Must be hidden, as we hide each thing of sorrow and of dread.
So she gathers up her tresses,

And with tender hand caresses

Neck and shoulder of the bonny steed, and homeward turns his head. Every sweet must have its bitter,

And the time has come to quit her;

Oh! the night is all the darker for the happy day that's done.
Now I wish I were the bridle

In the fingers of mine idol,

Now I wish I were the bonny steed that bore her through the run! For I fain would still be nearest

To my loveliest and dearest,

And I fain would be the truest slave that ever worshipped One!

THE UNIVERSITY BOAT RACE.

'Fas est et ab hoste doceri.'

If an announcement were to appear in the pages of the Sporting Press to the effect that Matt Dawson had been specially retained to put the last finishing touches on Belladrum's preparation for the Two Thousand Guineas, or that Porter had consented to superintend the final winding up' of Wild Oats for the Derby, to the neglect of his own chick, Pero Gomez, the intelligence would be received with incredulity, or even if thoroughly substantiated would not fail to excite that storm of insinuation and abuse which is apt to burst over any questionable act of Turf policy. To our mind, therefore, nothing goes further to prove the honesty of purpose which characterises every phase of the greatest aquatic contest of the year, than the spirit in which the services of Mr. Morrison have been dispensed with by his own University, and accepted by Cambridge, and the circumstances of the case reflect the highest honour on all parties. It was chivalrously honourable to Oxford to have waived any claim

on the services of their old and well-tried Mentor in the interest of reviving that public enthusiasm in the race which the eight successive defeats of the Light Blue had tended to depress. It was honourable to Cambridge that she did not allow any false pride to stand between her and the acceptance of an offer made in all sincerity by one with whom the general interests of the aquatic world weighed more than the uniform success of that section of it with which he had been so long and intimately associated. It was honourable in the highest degree to Mr. Morrison to have put aside old associations and strong predilections for the purpose of setting at rest the question so long and fruitlessly agitated, as to whether Cambridge owed her disheartening series of defeats to any causes other than her own shortcomings, and as to whether the physique of her champions, or her style, or want of buoyancy in her waters, or training régime could sufficiently account for a state of things abnormal if not paradoxical. To suppose that an University boasting of larger numbers, if possessed of less eligible training water than her sister on the Isis, should, after long years of alternate successes, so far decline as at last almost to despair of victory, argues something eminently rotten in the state of affairs, for which natural causes could hardly be held accountable. No such deterioration has been observable in other University contests, where Cambridge has always held her own; and this is a further proof, if any were needed, that the whole body has suffered no gradual decline, though one of its members has been paralyzed for a time. And should the efforts of Mr. Morrison, whether sooner or later, succeed in stemming the tide of fortune which has so long set in against the sons of the Cam, men will not hesitate to ascribe their success to the changes which the counsels of their disinterested instructor have brought about, as well as to that change of luck which must come in time to those who can wait. The number of formerly distinguished oarsmen is not so small as Mr. Skey would lead us to imagine; but, as in other parts of learning, the high gift of imparting knowledge is not conceded to all in like proportion, and to its possessors, perchance, the will, energy, perseverance, and above all, the leisure, are denied, so necessary for the thorough prosecution of their labour of love. And although in the multitude of counsellors there may be wisdom, yet how far more potent for good that exalted confidence in one, and implicit obedience to his commands, which, in our opinion, has so materially aided the Dark Blue cause during the past decade. For the present they have lost his guidance and advice, but the good which he has done has lived after him, and will doubtless furnish its results in the formation of a crew worthy of the palmiest Oxford days. And public interest and enthusiasm will be kindled into a fiercer blaze of excitement now that the premier of rowing has taken his seat for a while on the benches of the opposition.

The crews have commenced their training, as usual, at the most inclement season of the year; and although King Frost has not as yet asserted his dominion, yet drenching rains and pitiless winds have

swept over the face of our isle for weeks past, making its valleys lakes, and roaring through its leafless groves, as if determined to leave no brown withered pledges of last year's crown to the approaching spring. Notwithstanding the commencement of a Turf season which has been inaugurated under auspices more than usually brilliant and encouraging, the doings of the crews are as anxiously looked for and discussed as the 'reports from training quarters ;' and after their appearance on the London waters, speculation on the race will become fast and furious up to the morn of the eventful day. At Oxford the floods have greatly interfered with coaching from the bank, and on more than one occasion the weather has been so boisterous as to stop the practice altogether. An excellent nucleus of the victorious crew of last year remain to do battle for their University on the 20th of March, and report speaks favourably of the fresh accessions to their strength. Mr. Tottenham will no longer hold the yoke-lines, and his place will be a difficult one to fill, for his experience equalled his ability, and perhaps contributed more to the long succession of Oxford triumphs than many would be led to imagine. And, as might be expected, betting is at present in their favour, although it will be impossible to form even a vague estimate of their merits until they have been before the public on the Putney water, and in direct comparison with their rivals. At Cambridge the work of river purification is proceeding rapidly, though not sufficiently so as even remotely to affect the issue of the race by improving the entire course; and 'willowy Camus' is daily yielding up tons of the accumulated filth of centuries to the persuasive dredger. Ere long naiads may disport themselves in Barnwell Pool, and nymphs fairer than the houris of 'The Plough' see their forms reflected in the translucent Grassy wave. The floods here, though less violent than at Oxford, have seriously retarded training operations, and the old-established practice of long, steady work has taken the place of the rather desultory methods of getting the crew into condition adopted of late years. But few of last year's crew remain, and considering the difficulty of eradicating old faults, and the desirability of entirely new material to work upon for their experienced tutor, it cannot be much for their disadvantage to have to unlearn as little as possible, should any radical alteration of style be deemed expedient. The new stroke-oar is, by all accounts, eminently fitted for that responsible position, and his style and strength leave nothing to be desired, so that he will only be required to be well backed up to break that spell of disaster which has so long hung over the fortunes of Granta.

There is something which appeals especially to true British feeling in the annual celebration of the University boat race. As a people devoted to out-door amusements, we are readily attracted to the scenes of our national sports and pastimes; but on hardly any other occasion is there such a remarkable degree of interest excited among all classes, commencing from the day on which the crews take their preliminaries over the course, and culminating during that anxious twenty minutes, when the river is churned into foam by struggling,