TOPICS OF THE DAY.
"OUR ISTHMIAN GAMES."
-Ta-E national games at Epsom held our legislative business suspended, and summoned society to witness that important event— the triumph of a horse. Lord Palmerston this year dubbed the Epsom races "our Isthmian games " ; and as he has so long had an charge the conduct of foreign affairs, it has always been as.Burned that he must know everything about the transactions of business and public recreations in Greece, from the time of Don David Pacifieo back to the days of Pericles or even to an earlier date. It was no doubt on this account that the public acquiesced in his remarkable statement that the name of 'none, "maxima natarum Priami," should be pronounced " Hillee-onnee." Vir and we thought differently, but Lord Palmerston ought to know. We stand corrected. But as to our conception of the -Isthmian games, which we now learn to have been analogous to Epsom races, we have some difficulty in perceiving the aptness of the comparison. If we are not mistaken, those who took part in the Isthmian games competed, not in horse-raeing, but in poetry and music; they did not remunerate themselves by winning bets .at long odds, but the victors were crowned with garlands of pine;leaves. Some authorities, indeed, say that the pine-leaves were afterwards changed for parsley : but imagine the face of Admiral Rous on being offered a garland of parsley! And, to carry out the analogy more completely, the reward ought to be placed upon the head of the real victor—not upon the head of Mr. W. I'Anson, the owner, nor even upon that of Charlton the jockey, 'but upon the head of "Blink Bonny," the victorious horse. We doubt whether that would be accepted in satisfaction of all claims. The plan at Epsom, indeed, is not very Isthmian. " Tulit alter honoree.' The owner takes the winnings, the real victor 'only has his usual measure of oats, and perhaps an extra rub
down.
The Athenians had only as much room allotted to them as the sill of a ship could cover ; but it would be difficult to find in a 4loo]kestone smack, or even the Great Eastern steam-ship, that >piece of canvass which would cover Lord Palmerston's Athenians
• va Epsom Downs. Is it possible that Lord Palmerston meant the Olympic games ? They come nearer to horse-racing, since there were trials of manly • strength and skill in wrestling ; and if we remember rightly, racing also, only on a plan which may be still witnessed in Florence, though
• it-would rather astonish an Epsom jockey. But even here there are difficulties. At the Olympic, games, the Athenians tried their -.viva skill and strength ; at Epsom, it is the skill of the jockeys, -wild the strength of the horses, that they try.. For Lord Palmer,ston's Athenians go down in a first-class carriage and shield their faces with a woman's veil, lest they should taste 'the dust, or the sun stain their delicate complexions ! The keenest man in the country needs no teaching as to the distinctions between Isthmian games and Epsom races ; he knows the difference, as well as he does the difference between the horse presented by Neptune to Pallas Athena, and a three-year-old colt. His -speaking of the two as something alike was a stroke of covert sitire. He has, we believe, altogether relinquished the turf for `" another place," and ho sees through the huge trifling. He is met the man even to admit that Epsom races can be called, as they sometimes are called, "the English saturnalia" ; for what freedom do they give to popular speech which we have not already ? Nor do they bring classes together, except topographically. There ism° oblivion of the distance between master and servant ; no social fusion of different ranks. The only part of the whole ground -where such a thing is to be seen, perhaps, is "the ring, and there the fusion is almost enough to frighten a democrat with its ugliness. Here, indeed, you may see rough fellows, whom no gentleman would like to talk to in the streets, flinging about their ttiug.offers, as if they were more than the equals of the highest in the land. "Who will bet on Tournament ? who will bet on Saunterer ? " cry the coarsest of voices, with an inviting leer to Lards and Baronets. . "Will you take twenty to one against saunterer, Sir Robert ?" Sir Robert chaffers, and the bargain is concluded. There is some fusion here, and some confusion afterwards ; but we can scarcely consider it politically instructive. We read, indeed, that after the conquest of Greece by the Romans, the old Greek spirit broke out at the Olympic games. Greeks were heard to proclaim "the freedom of Greece," long before -Joseph Hume thought of a Greek loan. But, in our day, we
• searcely look to Epsom for any political demonstration. Lord -John Manners would not even think of resuming there the manly games that have degenerated out of our island. And as to "the breed of horses," the demand for light weights and short distances is giving us a race of horses that are but puny sketches of the tribe over which Eclipse was king.
Our Isthmian judge in the Cabinet is too keen-sighted not to have detected the moral which might be found on that populous course, even before we can point it for him. The race was a a-uprise to everybody, to the sagest as well as to the least learned in Epsom science • and yet, it appears to us, the simplest mind man read the riddle without difficulty. Blink Bonny was a child -of promise ; everybody expected the young grey mare to win the race at Newmarket; but she failed. This instant May, therefore, Tournament became the favourite ; on an "appeal to the country" he would have had an overwhelming majority; end when the race 111119 about to come off no one thought ofBlink Bonny. Even Baron de Rothschild scarcely remembered that there was such a mare, although he was in the race himself. Yet, behold! when the moment of the great race comes, Tournament is distanced, and Blink Bonny is the winner ! The simplest mind can perceive that a sound policy would suggest the sparing of Blink Bonny at the early race, in order to make the winnings the greater at the great race. It seems to us that this story of the Derby in 1857 is a moral for the great Reform Derby in 1858; for some of us, even Baron de Rothschild, have almost forgotten the high-mettled and once favourite "John," who certainly did not stand first at the last race, but sees in the Tournament of "our Isthmian games," just now, the reigning favourite.
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