at Newmarket. Ardently devoted to the turf, Mr. W. became one of its most zealous supporters. In 1779, we find his name recorded among other Honorable and Right honorable Subscribers to the Racing Calendar. In 1781, Mr. Wyndham's grey mare Tiffany, by Eclipse, appears in the list of winners; and in August of the same year we find him riding his own horse, a bay gelding by Goldfinder, over Lewes,against Lord Chatham's b. h. Mistley, by Herod, rode by Mr. Thoroton. Of three matches run, for 200 guineas each-the first and second four miles, the last three miles-Mr. W. won two. Indeed, these were not the only instances in which Mr. Wyndham distinguished himself as a gentle man jockey. The year following his stud was considerably increased; and that he bred some of the best racers of the day the Calendars amply testify: to particularize would be unnecessary, as the details have already been given in these pages.

As panegyric and flattery are so nearly akin as frequently to be taken one for the other, the writer might render himself liable to the imputation of having been guilty of the latter, were he to record his sentiments on the character of the late CHARLES WYNDHAM. He will content himself, therefore, in exclaiming, with George Colman,

"He was English, Sir, from top to toe."

Maria-lane, Paternoster-row, a few years after his apprenticeship had expired. Mr. H. married the daughter of Mr. Worthy, a wheelwright in Old-street, who is left to lament his loss, surrounded by a fine family of ten children. On quitting the painting business, he embarked in the Manchester trade in Cheapside, forming a partnership with a gentleman of the name of Owen. Soon afterwards, he joined Mr. William Roberts, of the White Horse, Fetter-lane, nephew and successor to the highly respected and truly indefatigable Mr. John' Roberts. This connection, too, was but of short duration-the field not affording sufficient scope for the persevering spirit and extensive views of Mr. Horne. By a bold and enterprising stride, he purchased of Mr. Cross the Golden Cross, Charing Cross. He had now room for his exertions; and his capacious mind was soon seen to advantage. His judgment, activity, and clearness of ideas in the management of such an extensive concern, proved the key-stone to his future wealth and importance: his prospects increased; and he became in succession the proprietor of the George and Blue Boar, the Old Bell, and Bull, in Holborn; the Cross Keys, Wood-street, Cheapside; and 41, Regent-street Circus. Mr. Horne was a capital judge of horses; and, as he felt anxious to do the thing in style, his coaches were always well horsed. Nothing pleased him so much as the gratifying intelligence of his cattle getting over the ground well. The Whips kept their time; and his coaches gave satisfaction to the public in general. He was acknowledged to be a most excellent master, and in the circle of his immediate friends, a cheerful compa

SIR,

OF

Fall the delightful melodies which belong exclusively to old Scotland, none is to me so singularly touching, or so deeply and tenderly affecting, as the hackneyed but exquisite ballad of "Auld Lang Syne." To me, indeed, it speaks of other and of brighter days; and I can never even hear it murdered by the hands of a common organ-grinder in the streets, without a mixed and almost indescribable sensation of pleasure and emotion; nor am I at all ashamed to confess, that I can very seldom read the romantic words adapted to it by the Poet, without shedding more than one tear over the vain recol lection of departed years, which, with many of the actors in their happier scenes, are now gone, to return no more. Painful, however, though the feelings produced by the retrospect and contrast of the last few years may occasionally be, the visions of remembrance which are conjured up by the melodious magic of Scottish minstrelsy belong, in no small proportion, to days, aye and evenings too, of happiness and mirth: and now that "the steed is vanished from the stall," and my "occupation's gone" amongst my hounds, I cannot probably do better, by way of beguiling a va sant half hour of listless exile,

than to “make a slight jolting," as Baillie Macwheeble has it, of some of my Recollections. And here let me, once for all, disclaim the most remote intention of personality or offence to mortal breathing, in anything, either of remark or anecdote, that may drop from my peu: and, as it is not at all improbable that many of my reaand associate in the author, let me, ders may detect their old friend before throwing off, express my sincere wish that I may present them with a not unpleasing souvenir of old times; and assure them, that, should the relation of any scene of "Lang Syne" recal me to their recollection at the covert-side or over the mahogany, I shall hold myself amply repaid in awakening their remembrance

"If some kind voice should murmur-I wish he were here."

I shall not go back to the "days of Adam" in commencing my Reminiscences, my first introduction to the Land of Cakes having taken place in the year 1819. There is room, however, for a great deal of business since that period; and, if I had the book at hand, I would quote Lord Byron's most beautiful description of the devastation that a lapse of ten short years unhappily, but almost invariably, causes amongst our acquaintances and our friends, as peculiarly applicable to my own case.

To get, however, again on the line. It was in the month of March 1819 that I first met the Lothian fox-hounds at the village of Gifford, which immediately ad joins the park and preserves of the Marquis of Tweeddale, and is celebrated by Sir Walter Scott, as the scene of the night-encounter on the moor between Marmion and De Wilten. With deeds of chivalry, however, I have nothing to

do; and shall therefore only observe, in reference to the Poem, that "the hostlerie," with its well-furnished larder, is still in existence; and that, under the auspices of much the same kind of "host" as described in the text, the tap of Swinton's Inn has most obligingly accommodated itself in a corre sponding proportion to the diminished strength of its consumers in these degenerate days.

Our field, I remember, consider ing the fixture, was a remarkably large one, and embraced (with the exception of the Noble owner of Yester, who was then at work in a much better country) nearly all the resident proprietors of the County within anything like the limits of a ride to the covert side: I say, considering the fixture; for Yester (the usual draw from Gifford) has but little to recommend it as a place of sport; and with two or three exceptions, one in 1820 in particular*, I do not, up to two years ago, remember any thing like a run being produced from its coverts. Very nearly the same may be said of the draw on the other side (Coulston), although, in the year 1821, I remember a most capital afternoon-run from the large wood through Townhead Moor and Danskine, leaving Hopes to the right, into the heart of the Lammer Muirs, to ground at Die Moss-the pace excellent the whole way, but the country at last almost unrideable through bogt. Such runs as this, however, are "few

and far between," although the stoutness of the hill-foxes is proverbial; and whenever a gentleman on his travels is surprised in any of the low country coverts, he seldom fails to take straight home in the direction of this infernal Moss, over a country, where, as Lord Jersey with much less reason observes of Brill Hill near Oxford, a man should be mounted on an eagle to see hounds run over it with a scent." There is generally a fox of this description in the whin-covert of Hopes, quite on the hills, and likewise in the draw from Gifford; but, if he sets his face to the moors, it is almost impracticable to follow him.

Doubtless the great bane to sport at Yester, as well as many other parts of East Lothian, has been the immense accumulation during late years of game and rabbits. To the last-mentioned pestiferous vermin may, indeed, be attributed the almost total absence of sport from those coverts, which, in 'former times, were seldom drawn without producing a flyer. The foxes, from the abundance of food at the very mouth of their earths, have no inducement whatever to travel; and not only are unacquainted with any thing like an extent of country, but are too fat and out of wind, supposing them by chance to go away, to shew any thing in the shape of a run; or, with a scent, to stand before so powerful a pack of hounds beyond a very limited space of time. Add