LITTLE WONDER,

Winner of the Derby Stakes at Epsom, 1840.

With a Plate painted by A. COOPER, R.A., engraved by W. B. ScoTT.

"FIT to run on the day;"-let this sentence never be forgotten by those interested in the race for the Derby. Here is another pony,— beautifully formed, in miniature,-that by temper, condition, and stoutness, beats a superior horse, for such we pronounce Launcelot to be. Little Wonder looked as blooming on the morning, as Spaniel looked, and won as easily. Wonders never will cease! There were John Day and William Scott, fighting hard to reach Judge Clarke, and Macdonald,―a jockey more distinguished hitherto for riding trotters, than racers,-waits with perfect patience and coolness upon the two, and wins the race.

The victor (whose portrait we give) is a very neat small horse ;but he will never have such a day again!

CRUCIFIX,

Winner of the Oaks Stakes at Epsom, 1840.

Painted by A. COOPER, R. A., engraved by J. W. ARCHER.

The readers of the New Sporting Magazine are aware of the opinion entertained by its editor, of this unrivalled filly—we may say unrivalled animal; for we cannot conceive that even Violante, the female Little Wonder of the Grosvenor stud, or the great wonder of the Mostyn stables, the Queen of Trumps, could have had the ghost of a chance with this admirable creature IN HER FORM. Crucifix is a bad starter, that is, she soon becomes flurried and eager, and the eagerness and confusion of a racer act in an adverse way. The dead heat with Gibraltar last year was entirely owing to this frenzy of the spirit, and to this alone will she ever have to attribute a defeat, if she ever should be defeated. A finer animal never stepped under a saddle, but Mr. Cooper's admi. rable portrait shows her in the quiet of her beauty.

We may be allowed to append a sonnet to this belle of the turf season, written by one of her most devoted and infatuated admirers:

SONNET.

I saw her with her splendid ears!—her heart
Untroubled 'neath her strongly streaked side!-
Her eye, alive to all,-dilated wide;

Her bearing ready, as the stringed dart!
She was the lofty creature, without art,—

(As is the lovely and devoted bride);
Over her beauteous form the sunlight died,—
As when, on some sweet hill, it would depart,-
Yet would not,-lighting what it, loving, leaves,
And leaving what it lights;-so shadows mix

With living hues!-Oh! while the action weaves
Colours with shades-Her beauty seems to fix

My sight and sense! So one, on quiet eves,
Stands rapt in gazing upon Crucifix!

June, 1840.

ABELARD

MISADVENTURES OF A CLASSICAL EQUESTRIAN; THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SYLVESTER STEEPLE-CHASE, LATE

LEAVING SCHOOL. STORY OF "CROPPED RICHARD."

"For he was hardy as his lord,

And little cared for bed or board;

And spirited and gentle too,

Whate'er was to be done, would do.

Mazeppa.

THE well-known astrologer, Julius Firmicus, lays it down as a fixed principle, in his system of judicial astrology, that any person born when the planet Venus is in Aquarius, becomes, ipso facto, a sportsman, -possessing no control over his tastes, but devoted, bon grè, mal grẻ, to the rearing of horses, hawks, hounds, and greyhounds !” (vertragi).

I began to fancy that such must have been my horoscope. For certainly, when I considered everything, I could hardly conceive that there was not some supernatural influence urging me onward. Here was I, a quiet peaceful man, after meeting rebuffs enough to break the spirit of a Hercules, persisting in a pursuit which I most cordially abhorred; and in which I could not see any, beyond a dim and distant, prospect of success. I could not even take the reins in my hand, without remembering my dislocated shoulder. If I attempted to sit down in the saddle, memory suggested that I might encounter a pair of spurs in the descent; and now, since my late disaster, I could not venture to put on a coat without suspecting that there was a miniature Guy Fawkes in the pocket, in the shape of a box of percussion caps or lucifer matches!

It was some days before I had recovered sufficiently from my discomfiture, to venture back to school again. I found M. Hyacinthe in close conference with one who was evidently a countryman, and whom he introduced as M. Auguste de Barras, a famous " chirurgien." As we may meet M. Auguste hereafter, I had better give a few lines of his portrait. He appeared to me admirably adapted to the meridian of that not over savoury city:

"Whose dingy denizens are reared in dirt,
Ne personage of high or low degree;

Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt,

Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwashed, unhurt."

Lib. v. c. 8.

ΝΟ CXI. VOL. XIX.

C