WILLIAM SYMONDS ']'] 



his seat would have indicated, for he afterwards won the 

 National on " Austerlitz," riding- in precisely the same manner. 



We now come to "Stella," the third of Mr. Single's that 

 possessed a turn of speed. She was a bay by " Cavendish," 

 with bad shoulders, hard wearinof legs, slack loins, and had a 

 nappy temper. She won the Roothing Cup and Towcester 

 Town Plate in 1883, in the same week after running second in 

 a race at Sandown Park, which unenviable place she occupied 

 on three other occasions. 



William Symonds, from his earliest days, has been asso- 

 ciated with the Sport of Kings. Born at Woodford in 1832, 

 he went regularly with Mr. Vigne during school holidays in 

 the early forties. 1848 saw him in Leicestershire enjoying 

 many a day with the Ouorn under Sir R. Sutton, and two 

 years later following- stag once a fortnight in Norfolk, and 

 filling up spare time with the West Norfolk Harriers, after- 

 wards with the Essex and Suffolk, Carrington Nunn's East 

 Essex, and R. Marriott's, with an occasional day with the 

 Queen and Mr. Garth's in Berkshire. In 1856 Mr. Symonds 

 settled at Lambourne, and knew all the Masters of the Essex 

 Hunt to date. Twenty years later he removed to North 

 Weald, where he earned the gratitude and goodwill of all who 

 followed the fortune of hounds in that part of Essex, by the 

 liberal way he supported hunting whether fox, stag or hare. 

 Mr. Symonds has prepared the courses and acted as clerk at 

 all the Rundells meetings ; he has also set out and been flag 

 pointsman at eleven point-to-point chases in different parts of 

 the Essex Hunt country. We only wish we could add that 

 fortune had smiled more kindly on one who, embarking a 

 large capital in farming operations at a time when things 

 looked rosy for the agriculturist, had to sit down under a long 

 lease and high rent and face it out. 



We wish we could add the portrait of Mr. J. Wilson, V.S., 

 of Enfield, the owner of the good grey on p. "]%, for they were 

 inseparable and undefeated in the Essex hunting field, until 

 the gallant animal broke his back. Could do anything but talk, 

 says his owner, although he alarmed a gentleman to whom 

 he once lent him, to such an extent as to bring down on 

 Mr. Wilson's devoted head a severe lecture from the father of 

 the Centaur, who charged Mr. Wilson with putting his son 

 upon a horse likely to kill him. Ever afterwards the late 

 Mr. Andrew Caldecott, mindful of this lecture would say, 

 "Well! you are on that diabolical horse again." 



Mr. Wilson was, however, somewhat accustomed to being 



