arise, and loud and angry assertion on one side, and denial on the other disturb the harmony of business, but in such cases one or other of the disputants is of the class of knaves whose assurance exceeds their assets, and who, under loss and partial incapability, boldly adopt the repudiative system, or deny their engagement in toto. Appeals are in such cases made, in the rooms, to the stewards of the race, sometimes to the general opinion, and the result is a compulsory decision of just settlement, which, if not complied with, subjects the disclaiming party to exclusion and denouncement as a betting man. Many of this class, who have from time to time received a mittimus from the Rooms and from Tattersall's, still, however, haunt the extreme limits of the principal race-courses; exclusives and outsiders themselves, by reason of fraudulent and dishonourable acts, they still continue to do some business in betting, and that through the medium of some friend or relative of better standing in the market, and who has not yet run the gauntlet of repudiation in the ring; an ingenious game it will be admitted, but one which ought not to be suffered; looking to the probable result of such confederacy, it may be fairly inferred that the individual who thus countenances knavery in others, is himself a knave, and waiting only the day of reverse to prove the fact. It is a pretty certain system of speculation, (and the annals of the Turf and the Ring shew that it has been more than once adopted,) for two concerting parties, both alike regardless of their own individual honour and credit, to take up a system of betting against two particular horses, favourites of the day. It is certain, in fact, that only one of such two horses can win, and it is clear that if one of the two parties in concert and confederacy, put the pot on, (as the phrase is,) against one horse, and the other do the same thing against the other horse, it may follow that both adventurers shall win, but it must, under any circumstances result that one or other of the confederacy shall be on the safe and winning side of account. Should neither of the particular horses, so selected for opposing speculation, win the race, the two parties in concert appear at Tattersall's to receive the amount of their co-operative ingenuity, and on this they base future pretension as successful and honourable men; if, on the other hand, one of the two horses should win, the consequence is simply a Levant excursion by the loser, and the punctual attendance of his friend and confederate on the day of settlement, to touch the proceeds of his game, which is, in due course, divided with his absent friend. And who is to prove the conspiracy? Suspicion, it is true, may be awake to the fact, but suspicion alone is insufficient to establish the delinquency, proof being necessary to conviction. The knaves, therefore, succeed in their closely concocted scheme of fraud. One retires under consoling circumstances, to be an outsider, or excommunicated Leg, the other keeps his position in the ring, his success giving greater confidence in his bets, and greater extent thereto; for a time he continues his successful course, but at length the day of reverse and loss comes to him, and having previously levied rather heavy contributions from the pockets of the wealthy and credulous of the ring, he concludes that it is time to retire, and coolly and philosophically intimates this determination to his expectant friends at "the corner," by failing to put in his appearance on the settling day. From such, or similar original fraudulent design, but successful in its result, have sprung into money and credit one half of the vulgar and ignorant upstarts who infest Tattersall's, and the various betting establishments in their respective local

ities. The secret of their present position is, that their first “run for the gloves" came off right, and on this result they have taken up the foolish and mistaken notion, that they have qualified for association with gentlemen, and men of honour.

The remaining sports of the week, with the exception of the important contest for The Cup, are of interesting but less exciting character. The Cup day is, however, in regard to the influx of visitors and general company on the course, of character with that of the St. Leger, and the scene of feasting and revelry in the town, and of desperate speculation at night, of similar colour and degree. It is the wind-up of the week, and with many the last desperate coup for a favourable balance.

On the Saturday, myriads are once more on the move to the metropolis and other parts. Thousands flock again to the Station at Swinton, all the old mutilated specimens of coach conveyance are again in demand. Special trains, in constant succession, re-convey alike the joyous and the discontented to their respective destinations; and, in the space of a few hours, the town is restored to its original state of tranquillity and ordinary business. Sic transit gloria Doncastri.

OWED TO MY CREDITORS.

BY ALFRED CROWQUILL.

IN vain I lament what is past,

And pity their woe-begone looks;
Though they grin at the credit they gave,
I know I am in their best books.

To my tailor my breaches of faith,

On my conscience now but lightly sit,
For such lengths in his measures he's gone,
He has given me many a fit.

My bootmaker finding at last,

That my soul was too stubborn to suit,
Waxed wroth when he found he had got
Anything but the length of my foot.

My hatmaker cunningly felt

He'd seen many like me before,

So brimful of insolence, vowed

On credit he 'd crown me no more.

My baker was crusty, and burnt,

When he found himself quite overdone,

By a fancy-bred chap like myself—

Ay, as cross as a Good-Friday's bun.

Next my laundress, who washed pretty clean,
In behaviour was dirty and bad;

For into hot water she popp'd

All the shirts and the dickies I had.

Then my butcher who'd little at stake,
Most surlily opened his chops,

And swore my affairs out of joint,
So on to my carcase he pops.

In my lodgings exceedingly high,
Though low in the rent to be sure,
Without warning my landlady seized,

Took my things, and the key of the door.

Thus cruelly used by the world,

In the Bench I can smile at its hate;

For a time I must alter my stile,

For I cannot get out of the Gate.

627

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY AND HIS MURDERERS.*

BY DR. W. C. TAYLOR.

WITH A PORTRAIT.

SIR WALTER SCOTT wrote the "Fortunes of Nigel" for the purpose of presenting to the world a more favourable portrait of James I. than that which the stern hand of impartial history has drawn. His antiquarian knowledge and his political partialities were at variance in the attempt to reconcile them he delineated a character which could not possibly have existed; he thus stimulated without satisfying curiosity, and directed attention to the life of a royal but contemptible profligate, who practised every vice while he claimed the merit of every virtue. The character of James I. would probably have rested in the convenient shrowd of obscurity thrown over it by the polished periods of Hume, had not enquiry been provoked by the great author, each of whose romances became the prolific period of multitudinous and voluminous histories. The reign of James I. offered little to invite research; all that was known of his court was little more than a record of brutal and beastly vices, which inspired too much disgust to be examined by any one whose taste or even whose stomach was not of the coarsest and strongest order. The excessive adulation bestowed upon him by the churchmen of his day, had secured for him that traditional duty of defence which all establishments accord to those who have supported their institutions in times of difficulty and danger; while lawyers were slow to admit, even to themselves, that gross injustice had pervaded any transactions in which the participators were a Coke and a Bacon.

But the greatest security for the concealment of the royal iniquities arose from what we may almost term his canonization. An anniversary was appointed for returning solemn thanks to God for the delivery of James from a plot not unlikely to have been partially of his own contrivance, and certainly falsified in most of the particulars given by royal authority to the public. When as boys we took part in parading the effigy of Guy Fawkes, annoying our neighbours with squibs and crackers, forming a gunpowder plot of our own to disturb a peaceful community, and finally wound up the drama by consigning the detested image to the flames, it would have sadly annoyed us to learn that we were commemorating the rescue of one of the vilest monarchs that ever disgraced a throne in Europe, and for whom we could scarcely find a parallel without having recourse to the most repulsive pages of Procopius or Suetonius. The church-service for the day might have inspired some suspicion; for in the same breath it expresses gratitude for the deliverance of the first James, and for our deliverance from his grandson, the second James; but that service has fallen into desuetude, and is only occasionally revived to suit the temporary exigencies of party.

The first great blow at the false reputation of James I. was struck by Mr. Jardine: his exposure of the arts that were used to secure the judicial murder of Raleigh, a hero who, in spite of many grievous errors, not to say crimes, is dear to the English people,-a people not inclined to lessen its admiration for its naval heroes by enquiring too minutely

The Great Oyer of Poisoning, The Trial of the Earl of Somerset for the Murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, by Andrew Amos, Esq., late Member of the Supreme Council of India. London, Bentley.