THE PAINTED WINDOW A POEM. By Miss Arnold. Samson Low, Son, and Marston.

This really valuable volume ought to be in every reader's hand, as one of sound counsel and great imaginative power. Its manner is gracious and attractive; its style is good; a sentiment, a tenderness, a feminine delicacy of thought and diction, a freshness and originality pervade every line, which mark the whole as a production of no ordinary mind. Miss Arnold sets before us the essential attributes of Christian virtue, their deep and silent workings in the heart, and their beautiful manifestations in the life, with a truth and power which can hardly be surpassed. No wonder that the "Painted Window" should have got into its second edition, and as it is one of those works in which the interest kindled at the opening burns brightly to the close, we anticipate a third edition of this truly clever poem.

DAME PERKINS AND HER GREY MARE. By Lindon Meadows. IIlustrated by "Phiz." Sampson Lowe, Son, and Marston.

No poem, since Johnny Gilpin has appeared, which is likely to become so universal a favourite as the one under notice; the poetry is true to nature, intensely simple, full of originality and freshness. The simplicity we refer to is by no means a bare, still less a weak or infantine simplicity. There are babyisms and puerilities in many modern poets; but there are none in Lindon Meadows; he writes the adventures of Dame Perkins, just as Nimrod would in prose have described her prowess in the hunting field; and he carefully avoids that unintelligible jargon, which many modern authors introduce in the works of fiction, describing hounds as dogs, the fox's brush as his tail, and detailing every particular of a four-year-old colt, who had during the previous year won the Derby and Oaks, carrying his master, of 16 stone, first in a steeplechase. To all who wish to enjoy a hearty laugh, such as would burst the belt of an anchorite; to all who can appreciate melodious verses with that springy elastic motion which distinguishes the musical masters of the lyre; to all who can enjoy artistic finish and epic completeness, we recommend a perusal of Dame Perkins, which is admirably illustrated by Phiz, in the following lithographs :-Dame Perkins about to start: The old mare goes to sleep: The old mare wakes up at the sound of hounds: Hark forward: The first jump; for perfection of seat see the man in red: The brook: The turnpike: The dame is presented with the brush. Never was "Phiz" more suc

cessful than in the above illustrations, which are exquisitely litho graphed by Vincent Brooks. The work, though inexpensive, is beautifully got up, both as regards letterpress, illustrations, type, paper, and binding, and reflects great credit on the liberal firm of Sampson Lowe, Son, and Marston.

"PUNIANA." By the Hon. Hugh Rowley. John Camden Hotten, Piccadilly.

Mr. Rowley is known to the artistic world by a most clever production, which appeared in the National Gallery Exhibition of 1866; and in the illustrations of "Puniana" we trace the same skilful hand. Nothing can exceed the talent he has evinced in this peculiar line, and when we add that the volume, which is beautifully got up, both as to type, paper, and binding, is filled with the choicest puns, conundrums, and witticisms, there is every reason to believe that the book will be found upon the

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table of every drawing-room in the United Kingdom. Mr. Hotten's name is a sufficient guarantee for the excellence of any book that emanates from his establishment; and no one has gone from grave to. gay, from lively to severe," more than this public-spirited publisher.

A very amusing book on Conjuring is to be had at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, where Madame Stodare's most interesting and truly miraculous entertainment delights large parties nightly, and twice a week in the afternoon the performance is repeated. One act of clever legerdemain is followed by the Sphinx and " Marvel of Mecca," two of the best executed illusions ever witnessed; nor must we withhold our meed of praise from that excellent scene where the automatons speak like living beings. The whole entertainment reflects the greatest credit on Madame Stodare and her indefatigable manager Mr. J.. Weaver.

THE LIVERPOOL STEEPLE CHASE (Run March 6).-11 to 1 against Mr. Carew's Shakespeare, 6 yrs., 11st. 1lb.; 100 to 6 against Colonel G. W. Knox's Columbia, aged, 10st. 12lb.; 20 to 1 against Mr. J. Nightingall's Surney, 5 yrs., 10st. 3lb.; 20 to 1 against Mr. Carew's Dermot Asthore, 6 yrs., 10st. 12lb.; 1000 to 30 against Mr. T. V. Morgan's Globule, aged, 11st. 71b.; 1000 to 30 against Captain Brabazon's King Arthur, 5 yrs., 10st. 3lb.

Printed by Rogerson and Tuxford, 246, Strand, London.

THE PROPERTY OF MR. GEORGE MATHER, OF HIGHFIELD, ST. ALBANS.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY E. CORBET.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY A. COOPER, R.A.

"HERE'S SPORT INDEED!"-BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.

. 277

. 285

RECOLLECTIONS OF SPORT IN CEYLON.-BY COLONEL W. W.
TURNER, C.B., 97TH REGIMENT.

REMINISCENCES OF A COCKNEY.-BY FORWARD

"" OTHER DAYS."-BY ATHELWODE.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF A ROCK.-BY NORVAL

. 301

THE TURF REGISTER.- Reading Grand Open Military Hunt-Donington Hunt-The Metropolitan Grand (Kingsbury) Steeple Chases-Ealing-Wiltshire County, at Westbury-Manchester-Carmarthen-Oundle-Birming. ham-Windsor-Lincoln Spring - Harrow Moreton-in-Marsh - BostonNottingham Spring-West Drayton-Tivy-Side Hunt- Derby Spring-Liverpool Spring-Chelmsford Spring.

S

RACES IN APRIL.

Eastbourne Hunt, 1; Northampton, 2; Windsor, 4; Newcastle, 4; Maze, 4; Edinburgh, 6; Newmarket Craven, 8; Meath and Navan, 8; Lichfield, 8; Curragh, 9; Thirsk, 11; Abergavenny, 11; Liverpool Hunt Club, 12; Manchester, 20; Newmarket First Spring, 22; Durham, 22; Knighton, 23; Catterick, 25; Chester, 30; Cardiff, 30.

STEEPLE CHASES IN APRIL.

Down, 1; Rugby, 1; Cambridge, 1; Bridgenorth, 1; Chepstow, 2; Isle of Wight, 2; Hedon and Holderness, 3; Aberystwith, 3; Windsor, 4; Grand National Hunt, 4, 5: Albrighton, 6; Southdown, 8; Lichfield, 8; Grantham, 9; United Border, 9; York, 10; Cheshire Hunt, 10; West Somerset, 10; Southwold Hunt, 11; Abergavenny, 11; Scottish National, 11; Aldershot, 12; Liverpool Hunt Club, 12; Howden, 18; Manchester, 20; Henley-in-Arden, 22; Hendon, 22; Knighton, 23; Stratford-on-Avon, 23; South Oxfordshire, 24; East Devon, 24; Sevenoaks, 25; Rothbury, 25; Irish National (Punchestown), 25; South Essex, 25; Tamworth, 29; Cardiff, 30; Nenagh, 30.

"There he sat, and, as I thought, expounding the law and the prophets, until on drawing a little nearer, I found he was only expatiating on the merits of a brown horse."-BRACEBRIDGE HALL.

WAY BILL:- -Mems of the Month Racing-Coursing - Hunting

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Boating.

ARCH has been a month of strange weather and portents. We have had a "Ten minutes' Reform Bill;" a fox has joined the Royal deer in a run (which seemed to foreshadow an amicable combination of parties to make a better bill); a two days' steeple-chase meeting lingered over five days; a race meeting was postponed for two when two races had been run off; and frost drew matters so fine at the Brougham coursing meeting that the nominators, whose teeth chattered so under the pitiless blast of the helm wind" that they could hardly give their votes, went to a division in a dyke-back, and the "ayes" had it by one. Several "professional sportsmen" protested; but the crowd on the bank cheered, and the decision proved correct. The sporting papers have been busy discussing the story of Plaudit and the nobblers. Falling sarcastically on the Sporting Life, they declared it on authority to be an old tent-peg, several yards out of the galloping track. However, the routers of Barry and "Tatershall" stood their ground; and a letter from the chief constable of Richmond (who does not seem to be a man of inquiring mind, or he would not have subsisted so long without seeing Plaudit) settled the matter most decisively in their favour. These, pick-up-the-peg polemics had even impressed themselves on the German mind. With them, according to the Sporting Gazette (to which "Phiz's" Leech-like sketches will lend no small strength, if he can only run up to the form of his steeple chase idea of "10 to 1 on Bobby"), an ordinary nobbling trick had become a "complott" for "the destruction of the horse ;" and the peg itself was "elongated into einen mehrene Fuss langen bis zur Spitze Vergrabenen Speer." Tom Hughes has had a most tremendous bombardment for the sporting comments which he sent over the Atlantic; but everbody will write sporting nowadays, and it is said that about sixty made application recently for a correspondent's appointment. Thirty years ago there seemed to be only one newspaper writer of sporting prose and verse in the land-to wit, the veteran "Vates." Take ten years from that, and we only seem to remember Vates, Judex, Argus, Pegasus, and the great "Joe Muggins's Dog." As old Williamson says of the young 'uns of the Buccleuch Hunt, "the young 'uns are a deal mair consequence in their ain eyes, and we dinna ken if they're so much better: faith, it's quite true!" As regards Tom Hughes, we must put in our plea in extenuation, that no one collected subscriptions with more energy for the first Rugby steeple chase, which Mr. Snewing, who had then no Caractacus dreams, won with a bay, we think, in a blue jacket-a faint foreshadowing of what just twenty-two years would bring forth on "the Surrey side."

Nisi Prius has not given sportsmen much amusement this month, and certainly none to "the Conservative Newspaper Association, which troubled itself on behalf of Yorkshire with The Rake's trial.