Berners. If, however, as is generally agreed, Sir James Berners was her father, her birth could have been very little after 1388, for in that year Sir James Berners was beheaded, as an enemy to the public, together with other favourite and corrupt ministers of King Richard the second. The education of Juliana seems to have been the very best which that age could afford, and her attainments were such that she is celebrated by various authors for her uncommon learning and her other accomplishments, which rendered her every way capable and deserving of the office she bore, which was that of prioress of Sopewell Nunnery, near St. Alban's, a portion of which ruins still remains. Here she lived, highly esteemed, and flourished about the year 1460. By all accounts she was a very beautiful lady, of great spirit, and loved masculine exercises, such as hawking, hunting, &c. With these sports she used to recreate herself, and so thoroughly was she skilled in them that she wrote treatises upon hawking, hunting, and heraldry. "From an abbess disposed to turn author," writes Wharton, the historian of English poetry, "we might more reasonably have expected a manual of meditations for the closet, or select rules for making salves, or distilling strong waters. But the diversions of the field were not thought inconsistent with the character of a religious lady of this eminent rank, who resembled an abbot in respect of exercising an extensive manorial jurisdiction, and who hawked and hunted in common with other ladies of distinction." So well esteemed were Juliana Berner's treatises, and indeed so popular were the subjects on which they were written, that they were published in the very infancy of the art of printing. The first edition is said to have been printed at St. Alban's in 1481. It was certainly printed at the same place in 1486, in a small folio; and again at Westminster, by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1496, in 4to. Among Cryne's books in the Bodleian Library there is a black-letter copy of this work, "imprynted in London in Paul's Churchyard by me Harry Tab." It was again printed, with wooden cuts, by William Copland, without date, and entitled, "The boke of Hawkyng, Hunting, and Fishing, with all the properties and medecynes that are necessary to be kept." Here the tract on armory is omitted, which seems to have been first inserted that the work might contain a complete course of education for a gentleman. The same title is in W. Powel's edition, 1550. The last impression of it was in 4to at London, in 1595, under the following title "The Gentleman's Academie; or the Book of St. Alban's; containing three most exact and excellent books; the first of Hawking, the second of all the proper terms of Hunting, and the last of Armory; all compiled by Juliana Barnes, in the year from the incarnation of Christ 1486, and now reduced into better method by G. M." The editor is certainly mistaken in saying that the whole work was composed in 1486. Juliana Berners could scarcely have been living at that time; and even if she was not then dead, the book must have been written by her at an earlier period of life. It is said, indeed, in the Colophon at the end of the St. Alban's edition: "And here now endeth the boke of blazing of armys, trauslatyt and compylyt togedyr at Saynt Albans the yere from thyncarnacyon of our Lord Jhesu Christ MCCCCLXXXVI." But all that can be justly inferred from hence is, that the part of the work which relates to heraldry was not drawn up by Juliana Berners. It is observable that though the whole treatise is

usually ascribed to her, her name is only subjoined to the book on hawking and hunting, and that what relates to the blazing of arms contains no more than abstracts from a work of Nicholas Upton, written about 1441. It is highly probable therefore that this latter part, if it was compiled so late as 1486, was added by another hand; and, indeed, if Juliana Berners was the daughter of Sir James Berners, there can be no doubt about the matter. That part of our abbess's work which relates to hunting is written in rhyme. It is spoken in her own person, in which, being otherwise a woman of authority, she assumes the title of Dame. Mr. Warton, already referred to, suspects the whole to be a translation from the French or Latin. The barbarism of the times strongly appears in the indelicate expressions which Julia Berners often uses, and which are equally incompatible with her sex and profession. The most diligent inquirers have not been able to determine the exact period of Dame Berners's decease; but from what is mentioned above it is probable that she died sooner than has commonly been imagined. The public have been recently gratified with a fac simile reprint of Juliana Berners's curious work, as printed by Wynkyn de Worde, preceded by a biographical and bibliographical dissertation, so copious and correct as to render all subsequent attempts superfluous. Joseph Hazlewood, Esq., the editor, has left no sources unexplored, and no means untried, by which light might be thrown upon the work or its supposed authoress. He is of opinion that the only parts of the work which can safely be attributed to her pen are-1, A small portion of the treatise on hawking; 2, The treatise upon hunting; 3, A short list of the beasts of chase; and 4, Another short one of beasts and fowls. This fac-simile edition, of which one hundred and fifty copies only were printed, is executed with uncommon accuracy and fidelity, and does great credit to the taste, minute attention, and perseverance (for all are necessary in an attempt of this kind) displayed by the printer, Mr. Joseph Harding.

Somervile is another writer from whom we have often quoted, therefore a brief account of the author of "The Chase" may not be uninteresting to our sporting readers. William Somervile was descended from a very ancient family in the county of Warwick. His ancestors had large possessions at Kingston, in Worcestershire, so early as the reign of Edward I. He was the son of Robert Somervile, of Edston, in Warwickshire, and, as he says himself, was born near Avon's banks. He was born at Edston, educated at Winchester school, and chosen from thence Fellow of New College, Oxford, as was his brother, Dr. Somervile, rector of Adderbury, Oxfordshire. Dr. Johnson says he "never heard of him but as a poet, a country gentleman, and a useful justice of the peace" (three characters seldom combined, especially during the last century); and indeed very little is known of his history.

The following account, copied from the letters of his friend Shenstone, will be read with pain by those whom his poems have delighted: "Our old friend Somervile is dead! I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this occasion: Sublatum quærimus. I can now excuse all his foibles, impute them to age and to distress of circumstances: the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on. For a man of high spirit, conscious of having (at least in one production) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and

threatened by wretches that are low in every sense, to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body in order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a misery." "His distresses," says Dr. Johnson," need not to be much pitied, as his estate is said to have been fifteen hundred a-year, which, by his death, devolved to Lord Somervile, of Scotland. His mother, indeed, who lived till ninety, had a jointure of six hundred." The surly lexicographer then proceeds to say that he "regrets his not being better enabled to exhibit memorials of a writer, who at least must be allowed to have set a good example to men of his own class, by devoting part of his time to elegant knowledge; and who has shown, by the subjects which his poetry has adorned, that it is practicable to be at once a skilful sportsman and a man of letters. He tried many modes of poetry; and though perhaps he has not in any reached such excellence as to raise much envy, it may commonly be said at least that he writes very well for a gentleman. His serious pieces are sometimes elevated, and his trifles are sometimes elegant. His subjects are commonly such as require no great depth of thought or energy of expression. His fables are generally stale, and therefore excite no curiosity. Of his favourite The Two Springs'-the fiction is unnatural, and the moral inconsequential. In his tales there is too much coarseness, with too little care of language, and not sufficient rapidity of narration. As a poet, however, he is chiefly known by his " Chase." This work he undertook in his maturer age, when his ear was improved to the approbation of blank verse, of which, however, his two first lines give a bad specimen. To this poem praise cannot be denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to write with great intelligence of his subject, which is the first requisite to excellence; and though it is impossible to interest the common readers of verse in the dangers or pleasures of the chase, he has done all that transition and variety could easily effect, and has with great propriety enlarged his plan by the modes of hunting used in other countries.

"With still less judgment did he choose blank verse as the vehicle of Rural Sports. If blank verse be not tumid and gorgeous, it is crippled prose; and familiar images in laboured language have nothing to recommend them but absurd novelty, which, wanting the attractions of Nature, cannot please long."

Notwithstanding the above elaborate and somewhat severe criticism by Dr. Johnson, the "Chase" has become a popular and standard poem, and whatever the pedantic Doctor may say as to the "impossibility of interesting the common readers of verse in the dangers and pleasures of the chase," time has proved the contrary, for no volume has been more read or quoted from than Somervile's "Chase." The author of it died July 14th, 1743.

The opening of the turf campaign in England has been propitious; but our remarks must be reserved for a future occasion.

We are happy to find that racing is increasing wonderfully in France, as can be proved by the official returns of the subscriptions, allowances from Government, &c. The statistics passed by the racing committee of the Jockey Club are as follows: 1857, 362,255 fr.; 1858, 367,437 fr.; 1859, 353,277 fr.; 1860, 409,832 fr.; 1861, 414,596 fr.; 1862, 436,147 fr.; 1863, 687,905 fr.; 1864, 818,043 fr.; 1865, 833,208 fr.; 1866, 932,539 fr. The following are the Paris and Chantilly fixtures

for 1867 Paris, April 7th, 14th, 22nd, and 28th; May 2nd and 5th; May 26th; June 1st and 2nd (grand prix); September 22nd and 29th; October 6th (Chantilly); May 12th, 16th, and 19th (French Derby); September 15th; October 13th and 17th. The following is a list of the Comité des Courses, the real Working Jockey Club of France: Messrs. Le Comte de Cambis, Fasquel de Courteuil, Charles Laffitte, Ernest Le Roy, Achille Fould, Auguste Lupin, le Vicomte Paul Daru, le Comte d'Hédouville, le Baron de la Rochette, le Baron de Conteulx, le Duc D'Albufera, Jacques Reiset, le Prince de la Moskowa, le Comte Henri Greffulhe, le Comte Alfred de Noailles, le Baron de Pierres, le Comte Amédée des Cars, le Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild, le Duc de Fitzjames, Adolphe Fould, Arthur Shickler, Charles Calenge, J. M. L. Mackenzie Grieves, Henri Delamarre, le Comte Pierre Roederer, le Comte Hocquart de Turtot, le Général Fleury, le Marquis de Lauriston, le Prince Joachim Murat, le Prince Auguste D'Aremberg. Mr. Mackenzie Grieves still takes care of the condition of the Paris course, and MM. le Comte d'Hédonville, Delamarre, Lupin, Reiset, and Schickler manage the general affairs at Chantilly. With a committee like the above, composed of highly honourable men, who take the deepest interest in the turf, we have every reason to believe that the Grand Exhibition year will be famed not alone for grand race doings, but will be one conspicuous for bringing together the finest specimens of art from all parts of the globe. We hope to see many French sportsmen at our great meetings, where no true lover of sport will grudge them the success they so well merit.

Α

HORSE RACING

HOAX.

Under the title of "The Suppressed Passages in Gulliver's Travels," the Pall Mall Gazette has tried on an amusing hoax, thus smartly introduced:

"It would be premature perhaps to assert that the papers in the handwriting of Swift, lately found in St. Patrick's (better known as Marsh's) Library in Dublin, will add much to our literature or to our knowledge of the man, but the discovery is unquestionably one of deep literary interest. The quaint old library in the cathedral-close was something more than a mere haunt of the Dean's. It seems to have been his study, his workshop, his retreat during the greater part of what may justly be called his reign in Ireland. Here, as his marginal pencil-marks show, he gathered hints for 'Gulliver,' from Cyrano de Bergerac and Hall's Mundus alter et idem;" here he wrote the 66 Drapier's Letters,' and that over-subtle and much-misunderstood satire, his Modest Proposal' for fattening the privileged classes on the children of the poor; here he administered caresses or cuffs, as his humour inclined, to his adoring Irish subjects; here, too, if anywhere, save in the presence of Stella, his baulked ambition and his banishment were forgotten, and sava indignatio ceased for a time to tear the heart of the great lonely cynic. The relics brought to light are, it seems,

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for the most part mere scribblings-scrawls made as if to try a pen; words written down as though to test some question of orthography (spelling was still rather arbitrary in 1720, and Swift was somewhat of a precisian on that head); sometimes, too, words which look like experiments in the Houyhnhnm language, put down to verify the monstrosity of their appearance before their admission into the manuscript; and here and there a stray note of a page or reference to an author. Of the very few that deserve the title of writings, the one which we are enabled to lay before our readers is in many respects the most curious and intersting. Why Swift excluded the following fragment from its proper place in the fourth part of Gulliver' must be left to conjecture. Probably it was from the fear of giving offence to some of his oldest and dearest friends. Writing in Ireland, he was no doubt aware in a general way that a passion for racing and turf speculation then prevailed in England; that the Darley Arabian was spoken of in terms that would have seemed extravagant if applied to the founder of a dynasty, and that Newmarket fame and judgment at a bet' were more valued in society than a reputation for wit or wisdom. But when he made his journey to London in the spring of 1726 he found that the mania had infected his own circle of friends. Pope, indeed, busy on the Dunciad,' had escaped, and Arbuthnot's Scotch caution had kept him safe; but Bolingbroke, to the peril of his then newly-recovered patrimony, had taken to book-making with that energy which he threw into everything he attempted; and Gay, not cured of gambling by the South Sea Bubble, was investing the proceeds of The Captives' by backing the Duke of Queensberry's stable in the most reckless manner and at the most ruinous prices.'

This is very good, and, in the way of leading the reader on, has rarely been surpassed, although, just towards the finish, the writer manifestly commits himself. Bolingbroke might have "taken" to betting, but certainly never took to "book-making," for the simple reason that the art was unknown in those days. It was long after his era that the system of betting round was ever practised. The hoax itself that is, the suppressed passage from the fourth chapter of the voyage to the Houyhnhnms-is more clumsy, and by no means equal to the prefatory matter. For instance, we read

"That a great number of our Yahoos devoted their lives to recording the lineage and recounting the achievements of these Houyhnhnms, and thought and talked of nothing else; and that if it became known that a Houyhnhnm of birth and distinction was sick-nay, if he even lost relish for his oats, or was heard to cough-it created more sorrow and uneasiness throughout the land than the distemper of one of our wisest and best Yahoos."

Now, we cannot help thinking that this is a very close plagiarism from modern turf articles, and notably from a paper called The Thistle Down, written more than a hundred years after the work of which the above is a supposed passage. There we are told of the Houyhnhnm "the world perpetually thinks about. Should he be heard to cough, it might make a difference of thousands. Were he to spring a sinew or throw a curb, or even to turn up that haughty nostril of his over the next feed of corn, the knowledge of such a calamity would convulse the