than people imagine, or the five two-year-olds that ran against him. infinitely worse than they are considered by those to whom their pretensions ought to be known. Thus closed the July Meeting 1841; and if that of 1881, when a railroad shall disembogue a hecatomb of cockneys, to make hideous the glimpses of the Duke's Stand, be a pleasanter or more fitting tryst, then are we most lame and impotent of conclusion. GLEANINGS FROM MY TRAVELLING JOURNALS. BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX. (Continued from page 31.) SLEDGING.-VIENNA, JANUARY, 1815. "Nor less the northern courts, wide o'er the snow, THOMSON'S SEASONS. FROM the middle of December, until the middle of February, the ground was continually covered with snow. During this period the streets of Vienna were crowded with sledges, all the wheeled carriages having dissappeared, and even the hackney coaches had been taken from their wheels, to be hung upon sledges. The horses' heads were adorned with plumes, while from fifty to a hundred bells were placed upon their shoulders, to give warning of their approach. The Prater (the Hyde Park of Vienna,) was daily crowded with sledges, and the equipages were singularly varied. As the Emperor of Austria passes in one direction, driving the Empress in a neat phaeton on skates, with a pair of quiet horses, and a single servant behind, the master of the horse, Count Trautmannsdorf, is passing the contrary way with a barouche sledge and four. Immediately before the Emperor, a fiacre, hired by some tradesman to take his wife and children to the Augarten, impedes the imperial progress; while behind, unrestrained by the citizen's orderly example, is the tandem-sledge of a young English nobleman. Next follows an open landau-sledge, with four horses : it contains the King of Prussia, and three of his diplomatic corps. Then a real Russian sledge, containing the Czar himself, accompanied by the Viceroy of Italy, Eugene Beauharnois. A splendid chariot, the panels emblazoned with arms, the coachman enveloped in fur, with a huge cocked hat, edged with lace, with two chasseurs in green and gold, ornamented with costly fur, contains two of la crême of Vienna society. That neat but unassuming-looking sledge, with two highstepping horses, and harness that would gratify the eyes of a Peytonwho does not know the country to which it belongs? It is the sledge of the English Ambassador. Nothing could exceed the gaiety of the scene: the splendour of the richly-caparisoned horses; the variety of colours in the plumes; the furs and cloths that decked the sledges; the costumes of the different personages that figured in them: Germans from all parts, Italians, French, Greeks, Danes, Armenians, Poles, Russians, Turks, and last, not least, English. The Emperor, anxious to afford the crowned heads as much variety as possible, and to provide amusement for the strangers, invited his nobility to assist in forming a magnificent procession of sledges. The day appointed for this parade was a Sunday; and it was a fine, clear, frosty morning; the sky was intensely blue, and the sun gloriously bright. At about two o'clock the procession left the grand square of the Palace, the guards turning out, and saluting each royal personage, as he or she passed. There were nearly fifty sledges prepared for the purpose, fitted up and adorned in the most splendid manner. They all varied in colour: green, black, brown, red of every shade, covered with ornamental work of gold and silver, and lined within with the richest velvets and furs. They were generally built like light cars; some, however, were in the form of swans, and other fanciful designs, and contained two persons. The greater part of this assembly were royal personages: emperors empresses, kings, queens, hereditary princes, archdukes, lords, ladies, were "as plentiful as blackberries." Each sledge was drawn by a pair of horses, covered with richly embroidered cloths of gold, their heads and necks decorated with plumes and ribbons, and a great mass of silver or gilded bells hanging across their shoulders. A servant in a rich fur cloak stood behind each sledge, and between each, three or four equerries attended, in the uniforms of the Emperor or of their respective masters. A band of military music, belonging to the noble Hungarian guard, preceded on a large sledge constructed for the purpose, and a similar band followed. A body of cavalry, splendid with green and silver, and leopard skins, mounted on grey horses, went before the whole, and another closed the procession. This brilliant pomp passed and repassed through all the principal streets of Vienna; then, leaving the town, proceeded to a palace of the emperor at some distance, where a magnificent dinner and a theatrical exhibition had been prepared; and at ten o'clock the procession returned by torch light. As it approached, over the glacis and open space between the walls of the city and its suburbs, the effect was peculiarly striking. The ground being covered with deep snow, the night just such a one as Juliet wished for "a black-brow'd night;" and the winding course of the procession was marked, like a stream of fire, by the flames of the moving torches. A VISIT TO THE BALATON LAKE, LOWER HUNGARY. Leaving Kesythely at an early hour, accompanied by the Hofrichter, or steward who conducts the agricultural concerns, we visited the farms and breeding establishments of Graf Ladislaus Festetits. The stud was numerous, and much care had been taken to improve the breed, by introducing Arabian blood. From the farm we drove past a Roman encampment, on our way to the lake, where we found a six-oared boat, manned by rowers in Venetian costume, waiting to convey us on board a flat-bottomed sloop, which is employed occasionally as a vessel of burden, to bring salt from the further end of the lake, but oftener for excursions of pleasure. The usual boats on this piece of water are clumsy canoes, made from a single tree, not unlike the Welsh corricle, and holding one person. These are called, on account of their insecurity, "seel trinkers," which may be anglicised, "soul swallowers, or destroyers:" yet the fishermen often venture to cross the water in them, at its widest parts; and, from their skilful management, few accidents occur. The Balaton is a fine lake: its shores are, in general, but little elevated; though in some parts, particularly about Tihany, they are precipitous. Its length is 40,000 klafters (forty-five English miles), and its width varies from 3,000 to 8,000 (three and a half to nine English miles): its greatest depth is not above twenty-seven feet. The river which chiefly supplies this lake is the Syala; it abounds in fine fish, amongst which are the celebrated fogas, carp, and pike. Nothing can exceed the flavour of the fogas; and here I could recount an admirable story of this fish, which was told me by a right noble Hungarian, one of the most popular foreigners that ever was naturalized in England, but that its raciness might be lost in the recital. Suffice it to say, that, at a supper-table, in Lower Hungary (we give a wide field), the hostess, having a remarkably fine specimen of the fogas, was at a loss for a dish large enough to contain it. Having lately received from England foot-baths and other useful appendages to the toilette d'eau, and not being exactly aware of the use of one of those commodities, which, though glorying in a French name, the hostess had never heard applied to a meuble de cabinet de toilette, she placed the fish in the aforesaid article, much to the amusement of a young Hungarian, who had paid repeated visits to England, and who (albeit, unused to the laughing mood) could not help smiling at the simplicity of the hostess's mistake; who, with the most innocent gravity, was pressing her guests to partake of this "fish out of place." For all we know to the contrary, she may to this day remain in the same "blissful ignorance," unless enlightened by some communicative friend. But to return to the fishing, which was, certainly, unworthy the disciples of "old Isaac;" for we found the lakers, in their canoes, forcing their way amongst the reeds to examine their snares. They have a method of constructing a labyrinth with thin hedges of reeds, in which the fish become entangled, and fall an easy prey. They also set conical baskets for fish, resembling those employed in our own rivers. The chief fishery is carried on in the winter, when they break successive holes in the ice, forming a large triangle; then they introduce a sievenet at one of the angles, and pass it along the whole base, by means of the holes which are ranged on that line; draw the two ends together at the apex, and thus frequently take large quantities of fish. The right of fishing belongs to the proprietor of the land; but each peasant may purchase permission for a small sum, thereby affording a cheap addition to his means of subsistence. Returning from the water, we stopped at a small farm-house, where a déjeuné had been prepared for us, by order of the Hofrichter; and such a one, that we might have exclaimed with the inimitable Fudge, in his letters from Paris, "so unlike the ghost Of your cursed English breakfast-your tea, and your toast;" for we had fish (including the never-to-be-forgotten fogas), flesh, and fowl, in perfection; and almost every wine, from vin ordinaire to "imperial Tokay." In the afternoon we visited another object of curiosity-the garden kept for the rearing and preservation of land tortoises, which, as in America, are deemed a delicacy for the table. The preserve encloses about an acre of land, intersected by trenches and ponds. Having received an invitation for " spoon exercise," as the Yankees call it, from the Plenipotentiary, we had an opportunity of tasting the tortoise in soups, stakes, cutlets, &c.; and the feast would have gladdened the heart of any turtle-loving alderman of our great Babylon. At six o'clock the following morning the Graf's hunting-carriage, with four horses, and the Ober Jäger, or chief ranger, were at the door, to take us to the forest, that we might see the preserve of wild boars. The whole extent of the forest is about 36,000 jock,-three English acres being rather more than two jock. On reaching the residence of the forest-master, we found a breakfast prepared for us. The hunting-lodge is most superbly situated, on an elevation at the edge of a small park, stocked with deer, the park being nothing more than a space cleared on a declivity within the forest, which surrounds it in all directions, clothing most beautifully the sides and summits of the neighbouring hills, whose tops are embellished by the castles of Reyi and Tatika: both are connected with historical recollections in the mind of the Hungarian. After breakfast, adding the forest-master to our party, we proceeded more deeply into the forest, till, in about an hour, we saw the herd of wild-boars feeding among the trees. It must be confessed that these animals have lost a great part of their natural ferocity, by being accustomed to come together every night at a certain place, where their young are kept, to be fed; still, however, they preserve, to a great degree, the habits of the true wild breed; and their flesh, we were told, had all the flavour of the savage boar. Except in some of the most secluded forests, and in the recesses of the Carpathian mountains, the animal, in its wild state, is nearly extinct in Hungary. THE DOCTOR'S HORSE. A TALE. BY SIR JOHN DEAN PAUL, BART. DOCTORS Cure some, and many they make worse, |