extraordinary and unflinching courage to the size
and vigour of this huge blood-pump. It is a
singular fact, that a small dark spot on the
quarter of Eclipse has been found in his
descendants in the fifth and sixth generations.

At the interment of this king of horses,
cake and ale were given, as at a royal funeral.
The same respect had been shown to the memory
of the great Godolphin Arabian. That excellent
authority, the author of  "Scott and Sebright,"
kindly calls our attention to the parallel
fact of the funeral of the illustrious descendant of
the Godolphin barb, Dr. Syntax, the sire of
Beeswing. On that mournful occasion, a party of
Newmarket trainers were invited to see him
shot and buried in the paddocks behind the
palace at Newmarket. They gave a lusty " three
times three" over the grave, and then adjourned
to the house to toast his memory.

O'Kelly hired a poet to fling his last defiance
on Eclipse's tomb at Highflyer and his sire,
King Herod, whose ancestor, the famous Byerley
Turk, bore King William through the battle
of the Boyne. The poet produced the following
epitaph:

   Praise to departed worth! illustrious steed.
      Nor the famed Phenicus of Pindar's ode,
   O'er thee, Eclipse, possessed transcendent speed,
      When by a keen Newmarket jockey rode.

   Though from the hoof of Pegasus arose
      Inspiring Hippocrene, a fount divine,
   A richer stream superior merit shows—
      Thy matchless foot produced O'Kelly wine.

   True, o'er the tomb in which this favorite lies
      No vaunting boast appears of lineage good;
   Yet the turf register's bright page defies
      The race of Herod to show better blood.

George the Fourth, always fond of racing,
even after that disagreeable discussion which led
to his retirement from the turf, mounted one of
Eclipse's hoofs as a cup, and it was a challenge
prize for some years at Ascot.

Herring published an engraving of his Eclipse.
There was, and probably still is, a painting of
the long, low chesnut, with the low withers, at
Stockton House, Wiltshire. It is by Sartorius
the elder, and represents the horse, mounted by
Jack Oakley, going over the Beacon course, at
Newmarket. He is going " the pace," with his
head very low, his jockey is sitting quite still in
his saddle. Both Eclipse's celebrated jockeys
died in distress. John Singleton, the first winner
of the Doncaster St. Leger, ended in 1776
as a pauper in Chester workhouse, and Jack
Oakley in a parish poor-house near Park-lane.

In 1861 there was much controversy in the
sporting papers as to whether Mr. Gamgee or
his son had or had not obtained from Mr. Bracy
Clark, on the payment of one hundred pounds,
the skeleton of this famous horse. Many
asserted that, Eclipse was buried at Cannons,
by his proprietor, Dennis O'Kelly. Others stated
that the skeleton had ornamented, for the past
sixty years, the Veterinary Museum of the
Dublin Society.

Jockeys are fond of relics. They make garden
chairs out of the bones of favourite racers;
they cut slippers out of their skins. There
are gold lockets now existing, in which
are enclosed precious locks of Eclipse's red
chesnut mane. The challenge whip at
Newmarket, the tradition goes, was made from
Eclipse's tail, and so they say is the wriststring.
The hoofs were reverently preserved,
and one of them was mounted in silver,
and, with a silver salver, was presented by
William the Fourth in 1832 to be run for
as a challenge prize at the ensuing Ascot
races. When Tattersall's used to be near St.
George's Hospital, a picture of Eclipse was
hung over the fireplace, above the race-lists
and the notices. It was the production of
Mr. Garrard. There is also another picture of
him with an inscription which declares that
"he was never flogged nor spurred," and which
also states the fact, extraordinary, if true, that
"he was a roarer," perhaps from cold caught in
his rough poaching days.

A few remarks on the introduction of
Barbary and Arabian horses into England may
here not be irrelevant. The first Arabian horse
of celebrity was bought by James the First of
a merchant for five hundred pounds. It did not
succeed as a racer, and the breed for a time fell
into disrepute in Great Britain. In Charles
the First's reign a lighter and swifter horse
began to be bred. Oliver Cromwell, a true
country gentleman at heart, and very fond of
racing, hunting, and all active sports, kept
a racing-stud. The manager of this establishment,
Mr. Place, possessed the famous White
Turk, whose descendants were valuable in
improving the breed of English racers. Charles
the Second, an excellent rider, had several
valuable mares sent him from our colony in
Tangiers. The Barb mare was given by the
Emperor of Morocco to Lord Arlington,
secretary to King Charles the Second. The
Turk was brought into England by the Duke
of Berwick, in the reign of James the Second.
It was part of the duke's spoil at the siege of
Buda. The Selaby Turk was the property of
Mr. Marshall, the stud groom of King William,
Queen Anne, and George the First.
After Queen Anne's time, many valuable
Eastern stallions and mares were imported.
The Brown Arabian and the Golden Arabian
were added to Lord Northumberland's stud
about 1760. The Damascus Arabian arrived
in Yorkshire the same year. The Cullen
Arabian was a somewhat early importation. Racers
now cannot do what their predecessors did. They
have neither the speed nor the staying power.
That patriarch of the turf, Sir Charles
Bunbury, who died in 1821, and whose horse,
Diomed, won the first Derby stakes at Epsom
in 1780, introduced the vicious custom of
running horses at two years old, before their full
strength had ripened. Lighter weights at once
became necessary, and the horses, prematurely
enervated, left offspring inferior to themselves
in speed and endurance.

Unhappily one of the worst signs of our