Monck's Hepatica (2), Mr. Howard's Perfection (3), Mr. E. R. Clark's Shepherdess, Lord Clifden's Hydromel, Lord Clifden's Chanoinesse, Mr. Howard's Queenstown, Sir L. Newman's Botany, and Mr. Parker's Martha. 6 to 1 against Governess, who won by a head. At Epsom she ran a dead heat with, and afterwards beat Admiral Harcourt's Gildermire, for the Oaks Stakes of 50 sovs. each, &c.; 8st. 71b. each; a mile and a-half. Mr. Jackson's Tunstall Maid was third ; and the following also started :-Mr. J. Noble's Proud Preston Peg, Mr. Howard's Perfection, Lord Derby's Target, Mr. J. Merry's Sunbeam, Lord Londesborough's Rose de Florence, Lord Clifden's Chanoinesse, Mr. Saxon's Princess Royal, Sir L. Newman's Botany, Lord Portsmouth's My Niece, and Lord Chesterfield's La Fille du Regiment. 4 to 1 against Governess before the dead heat, and 6 to 5 on Gildermire after it. Won in a canter by three-quarters of a length. The first heat was run in 2 minutes and 53 seconds, and the second in 2 minutes and 56 seconds. SUMMARY OF GOVERNESS'S PERFORMANCES. In 1857 she started once and won once :- £630 ...... 2,050 3,975 £6,655 Governess's engagements are first of all in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood-just on as this number is making up-in the Yorkshire Oaks, at York, with a 71b. penalty, against Polly Peachum, Tunstall Maid, Queenstown, Hepatica, and her old opponent Gildermire, who has a 3lb. penalty; in the St. Leger, at Doncaster; and also in the Park Hill Stakes, when, so far at least, with 5lb. extra, she again may encounter Gildermire, Tunstall Maid, Queenstown, Sunbeam and Hepatica. The present price of Governess for the St. Leger, is about 6 to 1. She is sure to run straight, and will most likely be in a better form than when she ran at Epsom. The mares of the year are said not to be very good; but the horses, so far, are not much better. There is little question, either, but that Governess should have won the first heat for the Oaks; and putting this and that together, her repetition of the Queen of Trumps performance is hardly the impossibility some people would have it. Governess has been ridden in all her races by Ashmall, a rising jockey, who has rather lacked "opportunity" of late. One of his steadiest patrons has been Lord Zetland, and much liked as his riding has been, the only wonder is that we have not seen more of it. "The coincidence" of his success this spring is in winning the Thousand Guineas Stakes and the Oaks, while Wells secured the Two Thousand and the Derby. The knotty point now between them is, of course, the Leger. Like Beadsman, Governess has been trained in private. Her tutor, Etkrett, was installed at Michel Grove on the death of old Forth, who first brought Mr. Gratwicke's horses out, and won the Derby for him in 1829 with Frederick, and again in 1845 with Merry Monarch: a brace of as bad horses as ever achieved that distinction. Mr. Gratwicke himself belongs to a good old-fashioned shcool of sportsmen, breeds his own horses, and always runs them to win. His victory for the Oaks was, consequently, something of a public one. Mr. Gratwicke is a Sussex man, and Goodwood naturally his favourite ground. "The Ham," and " The Gratwicke," here, were both christened in compliment to him. HOUNDS AND HUNTING: THE PAST AND THE PRESENT. BY JOHN MILLS, AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN," ETC., ETC. CHAPTER V. Among the hard riders of the past, no name, perhaps, is more conspicuous, or more associated with sporting eccentricities, than that of John Mytton, familiarly called "Jack," one who, taking him all in all, is not likely to have many imitators. But, whatever may have been his faults and human errors, either of commission or omission, it is not the present purpose to inquire into, justify, or extenuate. His biographer, "Nimrod," removed a veil, in publishing the private details of his friend's history, which, in the opinion of many, might have been better left unrecorded. He had one enemy. When the grave prematurely closed upon John Mytton, there rested also his first and last enemy. From the constitutional impatience of this most extraordinary man, and his total disregard of the ordinary rules of hunting, so long as hounds carried a good head, and he was able to "go the pace," it may readily be conceived that as a master of foxhounds he was entitled to hold but inferior rank. Possessed of a fortune that properly may be defined as "princely," and totally regardless of expenditure in every thing which gratified his lavish tastes, John Mytton had both the means and spirit to have been at the head of an establishment within the reach of few to equal, and none to surpass, either of "the past or the present. "Money," as he often said, "was no object," and although resolved never to be "done," the price of horses and hounds was a matter of total indifference to him, his desire and strong determination being to have the best within the range of possibility to obtain. But however indispensable may be "the sinews of war at the disposal of a master of foxhounds, something more is quite as necessary to qualify him for that conspicuous position with mutual satisfaction to himself and his field. Like a good General, he must know how to command himself, in order to be able to exact ready obedience from others. lf, unfortunately, he yields to impulse, and sets an example of disorder, hounds become wild and flashy, men over-ride them, head the fox, and leave nothing undone, except by accident, to ruin legitimate sport. Now, perhaps, since the earth commenced her rotatory movement round the sun, there never existed a man more actuated by impulse that John Mytton. It may reasonably be conjectured that the consequences of his acts, as a rule, occupied not the reflection of a single moment of his life. He would hazard his neck, and run the most imminent risk of frightful accidents, as jokes to be laughed at. Without the smallest necessity or excuse for so doing, he rode not only at dangerous, but impracticable places. Sometimes he made a promise of forfeiting a thousand if he turned his horse from anything in a run, let it be brick, timber, or the parish church." His extraordinary horse Baronet, upon one occasion, jumped nine yards two feet of water, and at a cold leap carried him clear over a wall five feet ten inches high, mortared on the top with broken glass bottles. The same horse is also represented in an engraving, taking a flight of iron-spiked rails into a road, looking as if impalement was more than probable. The draw, to John Mytton, was a preliminary which sorely tried his patience. However certain the find, it must be quick to please him; and notwithstanding a fair average of foxes in his country, he too often contrived to have a bagman turned down previous to his hounds being waved into cover, although nothing would offend him more than a raised suspicion of such being the fact. One of the most ludicrous instances occurred in proving that preparatory steps had been taken to insure the finding of a fox, however problematical the run he might afford, in the memorable occasion of "the trustworthy messenger" forgetting that a bag containing the animal for some time, and from which he had just been shaken, would act as a very efficient drag, more particularly as a liberal quantity of aniseed had been applied. Having fulfilled his instructions by turning the fox down, "the trustworthy messenger" essayed to reach the servant's hall at Rolleston, by a circuitous path, unperceived, and as he wended his way thither, thinking, probably, of the joys of that hospitable board which were sure to await his advent, left the bag to drag carelessly some inches on the ground. As may be inferred, instead of the hounds getting to their fox-wherever that unfortunate bagman might be skulking-they settled upon the drag of "the trustworthy messenger," and, with heads up and sterns down, run clean into him, at the moment he was engaged in slaking his thirst from a flagon of his master's hest ale, in the servants' hall. Whatever merriment this remarkable burst might have caused the majority witnessing it, Mytton saw little fun in the proceeding, and gave vent to his chagrin through the medium of his double thong, by thrashing the trustworthy messenger" soundly on the spot. Innumerable have been the anecdotes and stories related of John Mytton; but perhaps not one more fairly illustrates the impulse and daring character of the man, than that which is told of his designedly throwing himself and a friend out of his chaise when taking a quiet airing together. It appears that, among general topics of conversation, Mytton spoke of the countless accidents that had befallen him by flood and field, and inquired of his companion, "How many times he had been thrown out of a gig?" "Thank God!" was the fervent reply, "not once." "Not once?" repeated Mytton. "What, never thrown out of a gig? Why, what a slow fellow you must be!" and pulling the horse |