animated description of some picturesque place or person he never heard of before, and is not very likely to hear of again. But to the point, with one more personal appeal to the reader. He's a happy husband and a fond father-if he's not, he intends to be-if he don't intend to be, he ought to intend to be. You perceive we can't stand any more of those polite pull-ups and courteous contradictions. He is, we say, a happy husband, &c., &c., and at this season is in full rehearsal of what the open air National Gallery exhibitioner very complacently styles his miserable minus-teeth-and-talons menagerie of cats and rats, hawks and hares, pigeons and pole-cats-THE HAPPY FAMILY. The "highly promising" progeny are all round them, and ain't the much pleased parents picturing away in perspective: here, the young rascal who crows over his little sisters by sufferance, Ma's own boy, will one day become the favourite son of Mars; there the gentle youth who, thanks to the polish of a public school, is using such very strong and almost unheard-of expletives in the energy of his address, will, we can't say how soon, be recognized in the Bishop of Llandaff, Lincoln, or London, "till," as Sir Francis Wronghead has it, "better turns up ;" and yonder's the really bashful boy, with a strong stammer and weak tone, that in a few short seasons is to astonish the Old Bailey or the new Senate House.

There is no denying that, my good sir, no putting us down now; and there you go on with favourable reports from trainers and flattering private trials, handing over your two guineas a week, with travelling expenses, &c., &c., as if there were no such things as break-downsas if a young one could'nt show signs of vice and temper—as if he couldn't by any possibility bolt from the right course, or get doubly distanced on every point when it came to a set to. Nelson, certainly, was but a tender chicken up to his teens; very pious divines have been manufactured out of very sad scamps, and Demosthenes had an impediment in his speech. All very true, but still not exactly a line to go by. Eclipse had a blaze of white in his phiz and a white leg; and Orlando, the winner of the last Derby, two white heels and a bald face—“In fact, sir, just such another horse to look at as my foal." The steady well-calculating father may raise a sneer on hearing this, which he may increase to a sarcastic smile on seeing at Epsom the year after next some nineteen at the post for "the great event," out of a hundred-and-ninety-odd nominations; but he can only look one way, and continues engaging his own produce deeper and deeper, despite the thousands of briefless barristers, the crowds of half-paid over-worked curates, and the half-pay never-worked subalterns, who surround him. Should he think no one has a right to draw heavily on hope and fancy but himself, we beg leave to assure him that the breeder of the thorough-bred horse, one of the most delightful amusements or occupations for a country gentleman, entertains much the same ideas on his daily visit to the paddock, as he watches the rise and progress of a young Plenipo, or turns to his Shakesperian lore for a title fit to announce a son of Touchstone. Seeing him giving his long accustomed tribute of admiration to the dam, rich in all nature's beauties-nothing is in worse taste than to trim a brood mare-or intent on the gambols, the voluntary sports and trials of speed of the

foal; seeing him, we say, thus wrapt, would it not be cruel to tap him on the shoulder with some such greeting as this?

"Good morning, sir! Nice-looking colt that; I wonder what he'll be worth this time three years ?-thirteen pounds, thirty, three hundred, or three thousand?—and whether his portrait will be hung up as an ornament to every public room in England, or himself, in propria persona, hung on rather as a useful than ornamental appendage to some public conveyance ?"?

What's the odds between the old gentleman asking you to dinner, and showing you the straightest cut to the high road?

Strange as it may sound, we are not over partial to puffing, the more particularly when it comes to the ungracious task of blowing one's own trumpet; still we confess that it is with no slight satisfaction we regard the beautiful life-like paddock scene before us, painted in that style which places Mr. Herring so many lengths before all other thorough-bred artists, and transferred by Hacker to the less catching colours with that characteristic fidelity which should be the graver's greatest aim. The print appeals far more powerfully to the eye of the spectator than we could hope to; and, indeed, the usual information we furnish is of no great moment, for Levity, like her infant daughter, is even now but a child of promise. Her racing career shows an unfortunate disposition to running second when she ran straight, and for running out when appearances were all in favour of her running first. Can the physiognomist trace anything of this in her very blood-like head, or does he augur any failings of the same nature from the features of good Queen Bess?

Levity, a brown mare, bred by Mr. G. Walker, in 1831, was got by Chateau Margaux, out of Helga (bred by Sir C. Bunbury, in 1816) by Smolensko, her dam by Stamford, out of Sister to Spadille by High-flyer.

Chateau Margaux, bred by Lord Egremont, in 1822, was by Whalebone, out of Wasp (sister to Scorpion) by Gohanna, dam Chanticleer's dam, by Eclipse. He was sent to Virginia, United States, in 1834.

PERFORMANCES.

Levity-beginning at her second, and concluding with her fifth year-ran in all sixteen races, of which she won three. In 1833, her only time of starting at two years old, a Sweepstakes of 25 sovs. each, at Lewes, beating Mr. Martin's Mignon and Mr. Brown's Patty. In 1833, we find her quite a blank, with the ugly facts of bolting in the second, after winning the first, heat for the Borough Members' Plate, at Guildford; and in the third heat, after winning the second, for the Fifty Pound Plate, at Southampton. In 183 she won the Town Plate of £50, at Chelmsford, in three heats, beating Mr. Pettit's Observatory and Mr. Edwards's Merman; and in 1836, the Manor Stakes, at Hertford, in three heats, beating Mr. King's Swallow, Mr. Bishop's Jenny Wren, Mr. W. Scott's Catalonian, Mr. Arnold's Lady Albert, and Mr. Molyneux's f. by Dun

sinane.

Queen Elizabeth, the foal at the foot, was one of the last of the stock of Mr. Theobald's celebrated Camel. She has lately been purchased

by Lord Dorchester, who has also her own sister (Hump) now in training for the ensuing Oaks. This "coming again to the same shop" argues well for Levity's produce; and we trust the noble customer will have that luck with them which every man who has any knowledge of him will say he deserves.

SNIPE SHOOTING.

ENGRAVED BY J. SCOTT, FROM A PAINTING BY J. BATEMAN.

"Can't your honour find never a shot in the locker for poor Jack?”

A heavy fall of snow and a hard frost, a good fire and a long billextremely characteristic of the month, we must own, if not to some of us extremely apropos; but there, it is no use grumbling, we have arrived at the turn of Christmas, and, as the almanacks have it, hard weather and hard times may be expected about this period-delightful duets and determined duns, influenzas and evening parties, bad chilblains and good cheer, mixing up the complaints with the compliments of the season.

When winter comes as winter should come, and in the manner our artist has chosen to depict it, few pastimes find more favour with the sportsman than the shooting of the snipe; the wild duck, the wild goose, the wild swan, or some other such rara avis in terris, may be higher game; noble diversion, undoubtedly, when once it begins and as long as it lasts, but there is almost too much of the "dull for an hour, mad for a minute" system, too much crawling and creeping, waiting and whispering, shivering and shaking, for such as cannot forget that it is freezing hard, and that they are but mortal men. On the other hand, when you stride along by the side of some half-frozen stream, and the snipes, as in the scene before us, rise close and quick, there is such a cracking, and banging and bagging, such capital exercise and such capital sport, that you feel no more of the weather than an Icelander would, and go on in a glow of excitement, gathering health, spirits, and game at every step. Suddenly, you come to some unjumpable brook, which, however, must be crossed, and nothing is left but to test the strength of its slippery surface-alas! should it prove false and cold (perhaps too true an emblem to lady fair, who has trusted his even as he has its firmness) you then put all hope in the patent water-proof, and should that also fail, for even respectable tradesmen" will occasionally over-do the "nothing like leather" adage, you still find one source of consolation left, as you tap the extra highabove-all proof mountain dew.

Then again, the man who can answer to "Who killed Jack Snipe?" has a kind of stamp put on his character; for whatever your "great guns," who can, without any trouble, mark the tail side of a four