A Hound belonging to the East Essex Pack. Published October 311818, by J. Wheble. & J. Pittman,18.Warwick Square, London. THE Essex Pack. He was got by Lord Fitzwilliam's Glancer, out of Lord Lonsdale's Destiny. Such are the exquisite powers of his nose, that on numerous occasions he has ex- cited the admiration and astonish- ment of the oldest sportsmen, by his extreme sagacity in picking out, and at last hitting off, the scent, bition of the owners of racers, and even of the trainers themselves, to produce the best horse in Eng- land, if they could; and if he were taste, or at least the practice, of the present day, seems quite the reverse: and if by any means they have obtained a racer of superior speed and bottom, to find out the readiest means of reducing him by extra weights or other circum- stances destructive of his powers, be be beaten by any creature that can be brought against him. This system is the prevailing one at Newmarket; where no longer any attention is paid to keeping up the fame of an extraordinary horse, and to prevent its being said that he ever was beaten; but on the contrary, the plan now only seems to be, to find out some weight, or some particular distance, that may be so opposite to his capabilities, that he at once loses all his former fame, and sinks into a levelling equality. And for what is all this done? For the sake, perhaps, of winning fifty pounds. That a trainer, or one of those amiable gentlemen who walk about England under the denomination of Legs, should be so inclined (the word fame, or "the bubble repu'tation," not being found in their dictionary), is not wonderful. With them the only rule is "any thing for a bet." But that men of rank and fortune-that the owners of these horses, who expend so much money in the breeding, the keeping, and the training them, should be inclined to sacrifice the boast of possessing an invincible racer, to winning a sinall stake, by placing upon such horse weights beyond his year, and what must bring him down, may justly astonish every one. Fortunately, in the days of Childers, and the later ones of Eclipse, this system was not practised, and fortunately, perhaps, not understood; or there can be no doubt but that such extra weights, one pound after another, might have been laid upon them, till the opinion which now follows their memories would have sunk into the belief that they were not better than other horses. The genuine admirers of the race horse on the one hand, and the unsuspecting country gentleman on the other, were for a time astonished how the superior horse of one day, at Newmarket, was the inferior one of another, realizing the observation completely, "When the first shall be last, and the last first." But the problem is now solved by this levelling practice, which may be denominated very truly the democratic system of horse racing. It is on this account that Newmarket has lost all the attendants who used to frequent it in the shape of visitors; and nothing is now to be found there but the proprietors of horses who have given into this system, and are indifferent whether the horse be good or bad, if he be weighted accordingly, and all the accompaniments of this system, the trainers, the jockies, and the Legs, who stand ready for their prey-"Seeking out only whom they may devour.' That this statement is unquestionably true may be ascertained by those gentlemen in the north of England, who breed some of the finest horses, never appearing at Newmarket. The names of the Duke of Hamilton, Earl Fitzwilliam, Sir Mark Sykes, Mr. Peirse, and Mr. Watt, are never found there, because they are names which may be depended on that their horses shall always do their best, and are not compromising the excellence of their respective racers for a bet; and with them you never see the winner of one day beaten by the worst horse on the next. On the contrary, the Newmarket Jockies affect to think this method is the only one to keep up the sport; as, without this resource, they would not carry on their re peated |