to conciliate your adversaries, or at least rot to give them any just cause to disparage you ; and the hall bell reminds me that punctuality is as ne zessary in a senator as it is in a military man. You must be present to receive your father's guests ; there's not a moment to be lost, the servants are attending the door."

Following this injunction, I hurried forth, and was at my post in the drawing-room in time to hear the name of Mr. Sergeant Frobishers (chairman of the Quarter Sessions) announced, and to be introduced to that learned functionary. The company continued to be ushered in, and by one and all I was expected to say something of a friendly and conciliatory nature. People know little of electioneering practices, if they imagine the “sweet voices” are alone to be obtained in the public canvas or on the hustings.

During the whole of the dinner, I was occupied in drinking others' healths, and having my own “ drunk on the premises ;” and if I had not taken the necessary precaution of baving a decanter of weak wineand-water placed near me, my head, strong as it naturally was, would scarcely have stood the "potations pottle deep' upon this memorable occasion. In another point of view, it was fortunate that I had been abstemious, for, as according to the old proverb, “when the wine is in, the wit is out,” I should have made a lamentable figure when called upon, as I was before the ladies left the room, to return thanks for the honour conferred upon me in drinking my health, and in wishing me to be at the head of the poll. As the call was unexpected, so was my reply unpremeditated, and to judge by the applause, perfectly successful; but as a rechauffée of an after-dinner speech would not be interesting to the reader, I will spare him all allusion to it, further than to say that the church party (for in those days we had neither high nor low dignitaries) pronounced my views to be strictly sound, and that the outline I gave of my political principles seemed to give general satisfaction.

The three following days were employed in canvassing, and on the fourth morning I addressed the farmers in the Corn Exchange. There, for the first time, was my patience put to the test ; for the adverse party had placed noisy clamourers throughout the building, who yelled, hooted, hissed, and interrupted me throughout my address. Determined to keep my temper, I remained silent until the noise subsided. In the mean time, however, I suggested to one of my supporters, that if a cross could be chalked on the backs of those making the disturbance, unknown to them, and a motion made for their ejection, that the business could then proceed. This hint was immediately acted upon, and a young farmer rose to propose the expulsion of some geese who had found their way into the hall. The motion was carried unanimously ; the culprits thinking it would be impossible to recognise them ; great, lowever, was their surprise, when a stentorian voice shouted forth : " The geese are all marked with a chalk cross-out with them !” The word was followed by a blow, and in a few moments the hall was cleared of the intruders, and the business of the day concluded satisfactorily.

The day of nomination arrived, the show of hands was in my favour, and on the two following days the election took place. The result was most gratifying ; for at two o'clock my honourable opponent—who had all day looked the most perfect picture of resignation--resigned, leaving

me in a majority of nearly six hundred. The chairing was about to commence. The band struck up the inciting air of “See! the conquering hero comes.” I entered the triumphal and gaudily decorated car ; trumpets were sounding, bells were ringing, cannons were firing, banners were unfolding, ladies were waving their “true blue" favours, the populace were shouting, when I recognised the well-known form of Phelim O'Shea trying to make his way up to me through the crowd. The hurried manner of my faithful servant, his heated brow, bespoke that some extraordinary event had occurred. i What can have happened?" thought I. "Is Kate ill, or my child ?” My suspense was speedily put an end to, by a scrap of paper being handed to me over the heads of the crowd. It contained the following lines :

" Ough ! ough! The darling mistress has ran off with that dirty, snakin raseal, the Major !"

F. BUTLER.

TIE CELEBRATED JOCKEY.
ENGRAVED BY J. B. HUNT, PROM A PAINTING BY HARRY HALL.

BY CASTOR.

Opportunity is, after all, the great secret of success. Study and ability but languish without à becoming introduction, towards which influence may do something, though, often enough, accident still more. Good fortune is the highest recommendation to a discerning public; and how difficult, as how various, the means by which we may secure so satisfactory a reference! Opportunity, however, is still the key-stone. The barrister must have a case to flourishi in, the actor a part to embellish, and the jockey a horse to finish with. Give us something worthy of our powers, in which to make an appearance-or county courts, provincial boards, and common plating, may be the all to those whọ inight have done so mueh more.

There is not, perhaps, in the world so pretty a race-course, or so perfect a picture in its way, as that of Marlow, in Buckinghamshire. It holds but sinall rank, nevertheless, in the pages of the Calendar, Here, whilom, ponies scrambled for five pound notes; and here still, we believe, the infirm jump hurdles, and the fourth-raters run out their best of heats. Marlow, in fact, was more like playing at racing than that grand mystery itself. With a pleasant pic-nic between whiles, grouped out by the side of old Father Thames, who marks the boundary of the couse on one side, and into whose bosom many an awkward-mouthed one has all but plunged his scarcely less awkward pilot. Then, again, the stroll and long-remembered flirtations that followed in those massive old woods, that rise like a vast amphitheatre on the other side of the river, and under whose shade many were well content to watch the progress of the sports below. Marlow Races was indeed a pleasant day. With the dragoon from Windsor, “a capital lark ;'' with the swanhopper from the city, " quite a sprec;" with the clodpole of the neighbouring parish, “ as good as a fair."

“ It is now some fifteen years since," as the gentleman says in the play, that we found ourselves once more celebrating this annual holiday. The little mare—and out of an Oaks winner she was, too, with which we were to carry off the twenty pound plate, had blasted our young hope by breaking down but two days before starting. It is but a poor heart, though, that would not soon revive again before so much to amuse it as the little course at Marlow could provide. Bright eyes, neat ankles, hearty welcomes, and lots of fun of all sorts. Stick-shying ---roulette-playing-My Lord Drumlanrigg, for whom the spot appeared to have peculiar attractions, beating a brother officer on a game old hunter in a match for nobody knows how much-Tom Mason, got up in evident appreciation of the illustrious James, breaking his collar-bone in a last charge at the hurdles-market gardener sportsmen ; raceriding sweeps ; tenant farmer trainers—and in the midst of all these, a real Newmarket jockey !--a nephew, it is whispered, of the great Sam Chifney, and looking all over that which we are so solemnly assured he is. So neat, and altogether so perfect in his style—so cool and business-like in his demeanour, as he saddles Slender for another heat, and deigns again to encounter the “ roughs ” and “raws " who are to ride against him.

The intelligent reader anticipates to what we have been drawing on so artistically. The Newmarket jockey, who here, in 1839, was following through a plating circuit the fortunes of a but indifferent filly, and going to scale for twenty and thirty pound purses, fought his way on in a few years hence to a better opportunity. The “F. Butler” that we first saw ride at the Marlow diversions, has since lived to win the Derby and St. Leger of his year, and to rank in great deeds as the most successful jockey of his time.

Francis, or as he is better known, “ Frank Butler,” is famously bred on both sides for the profession he has adopted. He was born as far back as September 1817, and is the son of a justly celebrated trainer, who served in turn a Duke of Richmond, the present Lord Lonsdale (then Lord Lowther); and his Royal Highness the Duke of York, in whose employment he died, in January, 1827, but a very few years previous to the decease of his royal master. The mother of our hero, as we have already hinted, is a sister of those two turf celebrities, Samuel and William Chifney. She still lives to enjoy the increasing triumphs of her son.

Unlike many of those who owe their fame to the cap and jacket, Butler, thanks to his good mother's and uncle's care, received a most excellent education. He was for some time at school at Weasenham, in Norfolk, and afterwards at a more superior establishment-Dr. Nichol's, of Ealing, near London. He became so, indeed, fitted for what some might call “ better things," although we can hardly wonder at his turning from the first, to those pursuits in which he might be said to have been born, and of which he heard so much. The brothers Chifney were then in the zenith of their success ; and under the careful eye of his uncle William, our young jockey first learnt the rudiments of the science. From him —from home, as it may be written-Butler proceeded to Lord Orford's stable, in which he continued to ride exercise and trials, until his increasing weight and gradual advance to manhood induced him to think of more general and public employment. Unfortunately, just about this period came the decline of his uncles' fortunes ; and naturally