the main brace.” If the telescope is sufficiently clear to see through, a few steamers, freighted with London excursionists, some half-dozen yachts, with haunches of venison, legs of mutton, and grouse hanging to their sterns, an English barque or two, foreign merchantmen, the admiral's tender, governor's barge, and fishing-smacks are all that greet the eye ; and if the stillness of a summer's day is broken, it is by an irregular fire of small cannons from the Club-house of the Royal Squadron at Cowes, the authorities of which scorning all modern innovations, prefer the primitive red-hot poker to the more improved detonating-lock of later days. THE TWELFTH OF AUGUST-ANOTHER WORD FROM THE MOUNTAINS. BY HAWTHORNE, “D'ye like the mountains, where the red heather grows Where dwells the red grouse, the wild harts and roes ; "The glorious twelfth" is past, and fully has it justified the anticipations we ventured to foretell in our “ Prospects of the Season." For plenty of game it has realized all that could be wished by the most ardent votary of the trigger : yes, here they are in hundredsaye, thousands, all over the wild face of the Grampians. Still, notwithstanding their numbers, the grouse are not so very easily made food for powder this season, as they are strong on the wing, while the weather has been rather unsettled for these last few weeks; yet, despite these drawbacks, some capital sport has been obtained. The morning and forenoon of the 12th itself was stormy, and the birds very unsettled and wild. It continued very rough for the next three or four days, but since the 17th the weather, the greatest consideration to the grouse shooter-has been all that could be desired; and there is every appearance at present of its remaining favourable. At Drumour Lodge, Strathbraan, the Earl of Panmure bagged 123 brace of grouse on the 12th, and since that period his lordship, Col. Dundas, Sir George Grey, and others, have had first-rate sport every day they have been out. On Saturday, the 21st, we hear Lord Panmure bagged 100 brace of birds. The Earl of Mansfield and party of three guns shot at Logie. almond Lodge, on the first two opening days, and bagged 300 brace of grouse. His lordship and party are now at The Barracks, Rannoch, where they are having good sport, the grouse being very plentiful in that wild district. The Duke of Atholl and friend killed, on the 12th, 82 brace of grouse, and could have doubled that number if they had been intent only on slaughter. His Grace has not done much as yet among the “Red Knights of the Forest,” the wind being very unfavourable for sport up to the 22nd ; but a good time's coming, and there is no fear for the far-famed forest of Glentilt--that is if the wind will only favour the sport, when many a noble hart will fall on the wild face of Ben-y-glo, or in the deep and dark corries of the Atholl Forest. At Conachan Lodge, Lord Charles Kerr and Mr. Wingfield have done very well; they killed 200 brace of grouse in the first four days of the season, and have plenty of game to carry on the war with for months to come. At Cromlex Lord Dupplin and Sir Thomas Moncrieff have had a first-rate time of it. And we must not forget to mention our respected friend Mr. James Condie, at Rohillion, who on the first day bagged 72 brace, and has had equally good sport since; his book numbered 500 brace of birds up to the 22nd inst. We could enumerate many others that have made as good a beginning here, but time is pressing, and as at some future period of the season we may give a more extended paper on the sports of the Moors, we will bring these rough memoranda to a close. Grampians, Aug 23rd, 1852. P.S. His Grace of Atholl has killed three fine stags in the Atholl Forest since the 12th.-H. YORK REALITIES, AND DONCASTER SHADOWS, BY GAYHURST, “ York lads be fond of running horses." SCHOOL OF REFORM. There can be no moral doubt as to the truth of the above little sentiment. It holds as good now as it did twelve dozen years ago, when 156 carriages, filled with high born Yorkshire families, were to be seen drawn up between the distance and the winning post on Clifton and Rawcliffe Ings. In 1730, however, the Ouse took such liberties with this course, that the trysting-place of these race-loving cavaliers and their dames was removed to Knavesmire (where many a northern Jack Sheppard took his last fatal leap from the cart), which has just witnessed the 122nd renewal of its August carnival.“ The wheel of time, rolling full cycle,” has indeed wrought a quaint change. In 1752 there was one race a day for five days, and only 18 horses were stripped. In 1852 there were 22 races and 136 horses ; and as the Race Committee have got something like £500 by three lucky sales, and £300 more than usual in the Grand Stand, we may expect to see them next year considerably outtop the £1,444 " added money" of this. Few race-courses have more sporting recollections connected with it than Knavesmire. “ Thirty carriages-and-six,” according to its worthy chronicler, Mr. Orton, have graced it at one time. Here stood the quaint “ Give and Take Stone,” on which unhappy nags had to stand with their front legs two feet apart, and hind legs ditto, before they started for certain £50 plates, “ four mile heats ;' here King Herod burst the best blood vessel in his head ; here Eclipse had 100 to 1 laid on him a mile from home; here the fair but frail - Mrs. Thornton" astonished the natives, while Mr. Johnson did so still more effectually by riding a mile in a standing position in 2 mins. 42 secs. ; and here “ Wales” and Mellish whiled away in company some of their pleasantest hours, and saw jockeys jealously calling each other back, not once, but ten times, at the starting post, albeit they had four miles to travel over. 'Cute as Yorkshire jockeys inight be then, the breed has not degenerated. Siin Templeman and Job Marson give us no reason to regret that Goodisson, Ben Smith, Clift, Jackson, “ Matchem Timms," and even the gawky oneeyed Leonard Jewison himself, are beneath the sod ; while Ward, the quondam Yorkshire groom, has been just raised to the Regency of Parma, after proving himself able, on behalf of his adopted country, to checkmate in a diplomatic struggle the late crafty Prince Schwarzenburg. Well might the sporting owner of Buckthorn say that he was “ the most remarkable man he had ever seen.” But to our work. The old city looked, as usual, dreadfully dull and dreadfully respect. able, and very different to Doncaster with its rakish well-painted High Street, in which all the embodied “ humours and fancies” of the race seem to be perpetually promenading for fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. In one print-shop near the Minster, the same fly-soiled portraits of Elis, Bay Middleton, and Bessy Bedlam, again caught our eye, as they have done for these twelve years back; and on every wall was a “Ten Shilling Reward” handbill, setting forth the wrongs of a certain barber, who was anxious to discover the recent perpetrator of "a cowardly assault by knocking off his hat from behind, and then running away!” “ York for sport and Doncaster for company," was the definition of the relative merits of the two meetings, which a Yorkshireman once gave us; and we fancy it is not far off the mark. In point of company it is almost impossible for the former to compete with the latter, as the mass of sporting men betake themselves to their Joe Mautons and yachts as soon as ever Goodwood is over, and get so sated with grouse and signal-flags by the middle of September, that they gladly rush, with countenances as brown as berries, to rejoin the more faithful worshippers of Tattersall's at Doncaster. Moreover, it is an allowed fact, that the aforesaid sporting men have lost considerably more at Goodwood during the past and present years than they won upon Teddington when he showed such a band of followers his white stockings at Epsom. Sir Joseph Hawley, too, was not there, and in fact he las not to our knowledge been on a race-course this year. The “ Ban-jo" business at Doncaster, which, according to the “ Bella and General Chasse" precedent, was perfectly justifiable, seems to have quite weaned him for the present from taking any public part in the turf. Would that we had him back again with all his exciting moves! This year, too, York laboured under peculiar local disadvantages as regards company. But a week before, the grave had closed for ever over that brave old thorough-bred and greyhound fancier, Major Yarborough. “The funeralbaked meats” were scarcely cold beneath the roof-tree of Eskrick, and owing to the fast-failing sight of the venerable Sir Tatton Sykes, who has just completed his eightieth year, his wonted place near the winning chair knew him no more. Messrs. Kirby and Michael Brunton, both of whom can give very little change out of ninety, represented the ancient race of“ Yorkshire worthies," and they must have moralized strangely on the text of “ All things have become new,” when they saw the telegraph wires leaving the railroad near Dringhouses, and conting right across the old two-mile course up to the Grand Stand. Davis, who cares as little in his heart for actual racing as he does for the calculations of the orbit of “ Leverrier's and Adams's” new planet, Neptune, was not tramping about the enclosure “ with his restless hyæna-like step,” but calmly stayed in London, and executed his commissions along the wires. There was a full verification of the old adage, that “ there's nothing like going from home to learn news," as the leading betting houses in London had the news of each race sooner than they were known in York itself. A heavy thunder-shower during Tuesday night rather improved the ground, which was still a trifle hard. The first horse we espied saddling and clearing a ring for himself, à la Zohrab, beneath the stewards' stand, was the nine-year-old Radulphus. However, " The Yorkshire Blacksmith," who is always to be seen in attendance on the “ red spots" banner, clung to his ears and subJued him. He did not look quite in his last year's form, and as he has, at two York and one Doncaster Meetings, been the herald of triumph for his pupils, we felt an ominous fear of his defeat to-day. Before they reached the Stand, his tail was going up and down like a pump handle; but he thought better of it suddenly, and answered so good-humouredly to the whip some ten or twelve strides from home, that we quite thought he would have got the second honours. Merry Peal has quite lost her tendency to be a hollow back ; Vivandiere is very much cast in her brother's mould, but quite lacks his power and breadth across the loins; and The Reaper seemed to pull up rather lame. Among the Chesterfield Stakes seven, Prime Minister struck us as improved in look, and St. Michael as a likely candidate for hunting honours. Tom Holtby's tendency to corns did not consort with the ground, and The Saxon seemed a very well grown and lengthy animal. Constant work has made little Paddy-Bird stale, and he did not come stepping back to scale with the same wonderful briskness that he did after a fearfui race at Norihampton. A regular oratorical melée between Puritan's owner and Mr. Meiklam in the weighing-room was the result of this race, and we opine it will be many a day before the latter gentleman's blue-and-white stripes again figure on the plains of Warwick. Mr. Merry's "Unruly Member” seems always to be getting him into trouble, and people will not easily forget the “ Priestess affair," which was so unsatisfactorily laid to sleep, and recent doings at Coventry. The Yorkshire Oaks possessed little interest beyond the appearance of the improving Adine, who at one time seemed likely to have her own troubles to head Evadne, whose make does not betoken great bottom. Bird-on-the-Wing went along in better form than anything in the race, but report said that she had been “off,” and added that Adine had gone through a trial quite "high" enough to win the Ebor Handicap. Frantic looked very much lengthened, even since we saw him at Northampton, and many were found to believe that Daniel O'Rourke could not give him six pounds ; it is our impression that a short distance is his forte, and hence he would have nothing to do with the race till they were within a mile from home, and from that point Daniel toiled after him in vain. The latter 'seemed to have hardly a hair turned on him, and although “ large to the eye he was in very fine hard condition. The race just suited Frantie, as he wanted a mile of it “ slow movement,” and Daniel, with his 6lb. extra, and the St. Leger in view, dared not make strong running. Our impression is that if Caracara had chosen to come and make pretty true running from end to end, he could have beaten the pair. The crowd were very insulting to Butler as he returned to scale, and declared in very unparliamentary language that he had “pulled" his horse, and had served them the same trick with Newminster. We have not an iota of belief in this or any other “Captain Armstrong" insinuation against high-class jockeys, who have far too comfortable incomes, and too much proper pride, to place their characters in any man's power, behe a peer or & playman; and we moreover fancy that in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred, the horse is made "safe" before he leaves the stable. The fact is, that the York. shire tykes are rather jealous of seeing a “ Newmarket chap" first rider for Scott's stable, and Butler certainly has not been lucky over this ground ; but it is a comfort for him to think that these critics, in the plenitude of their wisdom, used to take equal objection in old times to the finishes of Sam Chifney senior. Fifteen out of one hundred and seventeen “infants" showed for the Convivial Stakes. The well grown Sittingbourne galloped like a dray horse, on pins which will, if we mistake not, decline duty before he is very many months older. Lady Vernon was one of the hollow-back genus ; Cintra was like a pretty but queer-tempered Arab ; Catspaw was a stout lady's horse, with, we thought, a tender near front foot; and Auld Acquaintance was a slight model of her lucky little brother, and showed off very differently to what she did in the Ascot mud. Nicotine was lengthy, but seemingly weakish in the loins ; and the Assault filly was small, like all her kith and kind, and certainly did not make us regret that her game little sire has crossed the English Channel for life. Incense bespoke her Orlando parentage at a glance, and Mr. Brook has acted very wisely in breaking off the connection of Lanercost and his two mares, as it has been most unsuccessful. Comfit was “the observed of all observers ;" and certainly she is a most beautiful mare, with the straight head outline, and nearly all the other attributes of her sire Sweetmeat. Her stifle joints were the most powerful we ever saw on a mare of her size and age, and this somewhat solved a remark we overheard from a Richmond man—"Mind thow, Tom, she's a divil to gan up a hill.” Her form of going was, however, so very short and stiff, that some of the stable who had taken the odds at 4 to I left the roof of the Stand and laid off their money. Kingston, that splendid 2000 gs. piece of horseflesh, won the Queen's Plate very easily. He was as big as a bull, and lathered tremendously after his 100 guinea breather. Every one, of course, said that he ought to have won the Derby, if the ground had suited him ; but we have yet to be convinced that he is a very quick horse. |