took bridle in hand. During that time I have ridden races on 'the flat,' over 'the sticks,' and have backed for the first time a score or more of wholly-untried colts. I have tested hundreds of saddle-horses, over every variety of road, at all sorts of distances, in all ranges of climate, and after this extended experience I unhesitatingly pronounce Dermot, son of Cornborough, to be in nearly all respects the finest example of the blood hackney which I ever mounted. The 'sweetest,' etc., he certainly was. Almost too good for this wicked world.
The birth of this unrivalled steed was mainly due to one of the magnates of the earlier Victorian era, himself an example of the strangeness of that destiny which shapes our ends in life. A member of a family of financial aristocrats, domiciled in London and Paris, with which capitals our friend was equally familiar, Mr. Adolphus Goldsmith scarcely dreamed in youth of 'colonial experience.'
But something went wrong with the finance arrangements of his near relatives. A crisis culminated, and the necessity arose for Goldsmith (fils) applying himself to the stern realities of life. He had previously performed the strictly ornamental duties of a young man about town. But with a cool perception of the situation, characteristic of the man, and a steadfast determination to conquer adverse fate, the whilom élégant of the Bois de Boulogne and the Row looked over the map of the world, picked his colony, giving the pas to Victoria, the then fashionable El Dorado for younger sons and vauriens, converted the remnant of his fortune into letters of credit, and sailed for Port Phillip.
As an Englishman by birth and rearing as well as adoption, Mr. Goldsmith had sported park hacks and ridden to hounds in his day. He possessed the Englishman's love for horses. Visions, therefore, arose of improving the breed in the new country which he was about to patronise, and incidentally devoting himself to agricultural pursuits.
Distrusting, however, his suitability for the necessary purchases and arrangements, he sensibly cast about for a coadjutor, fully instructed in bucolic lore, to whom he might confide details.
He was successful beyond expectation, inasmuch as he induced Mr. Hatsell Garrard, a gentleman farmer from the midland counties (whose love of all genuine sport had,
