

THE TURF 



N splendour of exhibition 

 and multitude of attendants, 

 Newmarket, Epsom, Ascot, 

 or Doncaster would bear no 

 comparison with the impos- 

 ing spectacles of the Olympic 

 Games ; and had not racing been considered 

 in Greece a matter of the highest national 

 importance, Sophocles would have been 

 guilty of a great fault in his Electra, when 

 he puts into the mouth of the messenger 

 who comes to recount the death of Orestes, 

 a long description of the above sports. Nor 

 are these the only points of difference be- 

 tween the racing of Olympia and New- 

 market. At the former, honour alone was 

 the reward of the winner, and no man lost 

 either his character or his money, feut 

 still, great as must have been in those old 

 days the passion for equestrian distinction, 



