A VISIT TO MY UNCLE. 
435 
“ Why, that engraving of a horse hanging over your mantel- 
piece has something about it not unlike the Godolphin Arabian !” 
— “ Ay ! well, he is not a very distant descent from a barb. 
That’s the celebrated horse, old Marske, the sire of Eclipse. 
Marske, you know, was got by Squirt, and Squirt by Bart- 
let’s Childers, and Childers by the Darley Arabian; while 
Marske’s dam was got by Hutton’s Black Legs, he by Fox 
Cub, Coney Skins, Hutton’s Grey Barb, descending from the 
Helmsley Turk ; so that you have plenty of the Arab and Barb 
blood in Marske. And a rare good horse, as you know, he was.” 
— u Yes ! I am observing what prodigiously fine make he ex- 
hibits in his portrait. What an intelligent head ! though they 
have detracted from its expression by that vile old practice of 
cropping.” — “ No! you are wrong there. He never was cropped. 
Those mouse-ears are true to nature.” — “ Such a beautifully 
bowed, lengthy, and } r et muscular neck ! and what an oblique 
and smoothly let-in shoulder, short back, strong loins, fleshy 
arms, and broad sinewy legs ! Why, he’s made more like a 
twenty-stone hunter than a racer.” — “ Ay ! he was what a 
race-horse ought to be, to serve long in his master’s employ and 
get stock of real service for the country. But you have, of 
course, heard of the strange mistakes that were made about the 
doubtful parentage of Eclipse 1 I remember, when I was a boy, 
that a Mr. Compton — 1 think his name was — was in possession 
of a very favourite racer he used as a stallion, to whom Marske 
was kept as, what racing people call, 1 teaser ;’ and that one day 
Mr. Compton was said to have received a visit from some 
sporting acquaintance, who, it was thought afterwards, had been 
sent on his mission at the instigation of O’Kelly, the then owner 
of Eclipse, which was to make purchase of Marske, in conse- 
quence of O’Kelly having received private information of his 
being the veritable sire of Eclipse. Under pretence, therefore, of 
looking over his stud, his visitor, when he came to Marske, said, 
in a tone of seeming indifference and mere inquisitiveness, ‘And, 
pray, what price would you think of putting on this old worn-out 
horse]’ The reply was, ‘ £20.’ — “I’ll buy him; it’s a bargain!” 
He turned out, as we all know, not only the true sire of Eclipse, 
but of several of our best gone-by horses of his day ; among 
others, of Shark, for whom his master, the Duke of Rutland, re- 
fused £12,000. Marske covered, at one time, at so high a price 
as 100 guineas a mare ; his son. Eclipse, covering at twenty-five 
guineas.” 
“ I was admiring — for utility, at least, albeit, I suppose, on 
the score of unsightliness it might now-a-days be objected to — 
the plated bit you ride your mare with. The branches being flat, 
and made broad enough to contain a couple or more of eyes 
