the details of a soldier's life, seems to me at least as strong as that which led Lord Campbell to believe that there was a strong presumption in favour of the theory that, either as a clerk in an office, or by attending sessions and assizes, and the local Court of Record at Stratford, he had acquired a much more accurate knowledge of legal proceedings and terminology than was common among laymen of his class. And if that conclusion is probable, it is obvious that the scene of that acquaintance, and also, it may be, of the knowledge of the incidents of a sailor's life shown in the "Tempest," must be found in the only region in which the forces of England were engaged during the time which, as I have said above, is a blank in the poet's life.

4. In the "Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of James I., 1603-1610," edited by Mrs. Green in 1857, there is a list of trained soldiers in the hundred of Barlichway (which includes Stratford-on-Avon) on September 23, 1605, the year of the Gunpowder Plot, and in the list, under the head of Rowington, occurs the name of "William Shakespeare." His will shows that he held a copyhold tenement in that manor. He returned to Stratford, that is, with the reputation of having, among many other achievements, served in the

wars.

I have brought these facts together chiefly because they seem to me to throw light on the grand passage in the Prologue to Act iv. of "Henry V.," in which Shakespeare draws his ideal picture of what the commander of an army ought to be.

"O, now, who will behold

The royal captain of this ruin'd band,

Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,

Let him cry-Praise and glory on his head!

For forth he goes, and visits all his host;

Bids them good-morrow with a modest smile,

And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.

Upon his royal face there is no note

How dread an army hath enrounded him;

Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour

Unto the weary and all-watchèd night;

But freshly looks, and overbears attaint

With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;

That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
A largess universal, like the sun,

His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear.'

One may safely say that of all the English commanders in the Netherlands there was but one to whom that description could have been fully applicable. We have here, if I am not mistaken, a portrait drawn from life of the hero who lives for ever in the story of the cup of cold water on the field of Zutphen, as he lived and moved among his soldiers, loving and beloved. We have, indeed, an actual record of a speech by Sir Philip Sidney to his soldiers before the assault on Axell, of which Shakespeare's lines are little more than a paraphrase.

"He reminded them of their beloved country, that they were Englishmen, that, as such, they should fear neither death nor danger, that they were fighting for friends and neighbours in the cause of freedom, and against tyranny and Antichrist." Of this speech Stowe adds, that "it did so link the minds of the people that they did rather desire to die in that service than to live in the contrary." Those who have read Mr. Rodd's "Memoirs" of the late Emperor Frederick, will admit that we have had a hero-warrior in our own time to whom the words (all but the "ruined" army) were as fully applicable. It may be a thought of some interest to all who honour his memory, from the widowed Empress, whom England has lately welcomed with reverence and sympathy, downward, that the portrait was like him, because it was drawn from Sidney.

E. H. PLUMPTRE.

* Stowe's Chronicle, p. 733; in Zouch's "Life of Sidney," p. 248. We may compare also

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he, to-day that sheds his life for me

Shall be my brother: be he ne'er so vile
This day shall gentle his condition."

Henry V., iv. 3.

THE ETHICS OF THE TURF.

W

HEN Lord Beaconsfield called the Turf a vast engine of national demoralization, he uttered a broad general truth; but, unfortunately, he did not go into particulars, and his vague grandiloquence has inspired a large number of ferocious imitators, who know as little about the essentials of the matter as Lord Beaconsfield did. These imitators abuse the wrong things and the wrong people; they mix up causes and effects; they are acrid where they should be tolerant; they know nothing about the real evils; and they do no good, for the simple reason that racing blackguards never read anything, while cultured gentlemen who happen to go racing smile quietly at the blundering of amateur moralists. Sir Wilfrid Lawson is a good man and a clever man; but to see the kind of display he makes when he gets up to talk about the Turf is very saddening. He can give you an accurate statement concerning the evils of drink, but as soon as he touches racing his innocence becomes wofully apparent, and the biggest scoundrel that ever entered the Ring can afford to make game of the harmless, well-meaning critic. The subject is an intricate one, and you cannot settle it right off by talking of “pampered nobles who pander to the worst vices of the multitude; and you go equally wrong if you begin to shriek whenever that inevitable larcenous shopboy whimpers in the dock about the temptations of betting. We are poisoned by generalities; our reformers, who use press and platform to enlighten us, resemble a doctor who should stop by a patient's bedside and deliver an oration on bad health in the abstract when he ought to be finding out his man's particular ailment. Let us clear the ground a little bit, until we can see something definite. I am going to talk plainly about things that I know, and I want to put all sentimental rubbish out of the road.

In the first place, then, horse-racing, in itself, is neither degrading nor anything else that is bad; a race is a beautiful and exhilarating spectacle, and quiet men, who never bet, are taken out of themselves in a delightful fashion when the exquisite thoroughbreds thunder past. No sensible man supposes for a moment that owners and trainers have any deliberate intention of improving the breed of horses, but, nevertheless, these splendid tests of speed and endurance undoubtedly tend indirectly to produce a fine breed, and that is worth taking into account. The Survival of the Fittest is the law that governs racing studs; the thought and observation of clever men are constantly exercised with a view to preserving excellence and eliminating defects, so that, little by little, we have contrived, in the course of a century, to approach equine perfection. If a twelve-stone man were put up on Bendigo, that magnificent animal could give half a mile start to any Arab steed that ever was foaled, and run away from the Arab at the finish of a four-mile course. Weight need not be considered, for if the Eastern-bred horse only carried a postage-stamp the result would be much about the same. Minting could carry fourteen stone across a country, while, if we come to mere speed, there is really no knowing what horses like Ormonde, Energy, Prince Charlie, and others might have done had they been pressed. If the Emir of Hail were to bring over fifty of his best mares, the Newmarket trainers could pick out fifty fillies from among their second-rate animals, and the worst of the fillies could distance the best of the Arabs on any terms; while, if fifty heats were run off, over any courses from half a mile to four miles, the English horses would not lose one. The champion Arab of the world was matched against one of the worst thoroughbreds in training; the English "plater" carried about five stone more than the pride of the East, and won by a quarter of a mile.

Unconsciously, the breeders of racers have been evolving for us the swiftest, strongest, and most courageous horse known to the world, and we cannot afford to neglect that consideration, for people will not strive after perfection unless perfection brings profit.

Again, we hear occasionally a good deal of outcry about the great noblemen and gentlemen who keep up expensive studs, and the assumption is that racehorses and immorality go together; but what would the critics have the typical racing nobleman do? He is born into a strange artificial society; his fate is ready-made for him; he inherits luxuries and pastimes as he inherits land and trees. Say that the stud is a useless luxury: but then, what about the daubs for which plutocrats pay thousands of guineas? A picture costs, let us say, 2000 guineas; it is the slovenly work of a hurried master, and the guineas are paid for a name; it is stuck away in a private gallery, and, if its owner looks at it so often as once

a week, it costs him £2 per peep-reckoning only the interest on the money sunk. Is that useless luxury? The fact is that we are living in a sort of guarded hothouse; our barbarian propensities cannot have an easy outlet ; and luxury of all sorts tends to lull our barbarian energy. If we blame one man for indulging a costly hobby, we must blame almost every man and woman who belongs to the grades above the lower middle-class. A rich trader who spends

£5000 a year on orchid-houses cannot very well afford to reprove a man who pays 50s. per week for each of a dozen horses in training. Rich folk, whose wealth has been fostered during the long security of England, will indulge in superfluities, and no one can stop them. A country gentleman who succeeds to a deer park cannot slaughter all the useless, pretty creatures merely because they are useless he is bound by a thousand traditions, and he cannot break away all of a sudden. A nobleman inherits a colossal income, of which he cannot very well rid himself: he follows the traditions of his family or his class, and employs part of his profuse surplus riches in maintaining a racing stud; how can any one find fault with him? Such a man as Lord Hartington would never dream of betting except in a languid, off-hand way. He (and his like) are fond of watching the superb rush of the glossy horses; they want the freedom, the swift excitement of the breezy heath; our society encourages them to amuse themselves, and they do so with a will. That is all. It may be wrong for A, and B, and C to own superfluous wealth, but then the fact is there that they have got it, and the community agree that they may expend the superfluity as they choose. The rich man's stud gives wholesome employment to myriads of decent folks in various stations of life-farmers, saddlers, blacksmiths, builders, corn dealers, roadmakers, hedgers, farriers, grooms, and half a score other sorts of toilers derive their living from feeding, harnessing, and tending the horses, and the withdrawal of such a sportsman as Mr. "Abington " from Newmarket would inflict a terrible blow on hundreds of industrious persons who lead perfectly useful and harmless lives. My point is, that racing (as racing) is in no way noxious; it is the most pleasant of all excitements, and it gives bread to many praiseworthy citizens. I have seen £5000 given for a Latin hymn-book, and, when I pondered on the ghastly, imbecile selfishness of that purchase, I thought that I should not have mourned very much if the money had been laid out on a dozen smart colts and fillies, for, at least, the horses would have ultimately been of some use, even if they all had been put to cab-work. We must allow that when racing is a hobby, it is quite respectable -as hobbies go. One good friend of mine, whose fortune has been made by shrewd judgment and constant work, always keeps five or six racers in training. He goes from meeting to meeting with all the eagerness of a boy; his friends sturdily maintain that his stud is