quence was we had the others continually off-side, sometimes all four of them at the same time, and knocked off, I think, 5 goals to 1. Dear old B. was very cross, said it was all rot and not polo. However, it was a very good sell. Of course the game was not understood then as it is now, and such a thing could not happen in these days, as they would have quickly told off two men to ride us off, and then played with us as they liked.

With regard to the height of the ponies, it is, as I have said, immaterial, as long as they are all of the same standard height, though even then you must always have a great difference in the height, strength, and speed of the pony, however strict the actual standard measurement may be. It is therefore wise to keep to keep the standard as low as possible, compatible with the power of the ponies to carry the weight and the feasibility of obtaining the number required. It is a great mistake to think that it is essential for a polo pony to carry weight in proportion to what you require from hunter. A polo pony is never ridden for long at a time, and if kept fit and hard will carry with ease a far greater weight than he is generally supposed to be able to; but it is most essential that he should have quality. Without it he is useless for polo, though this, to my mind, applies equally to the hunter. You can never hope or expect to get the ponies all the same with regard

to pace or weight. You may have a small light pony high at the wither, and a big powerful pony low at the wither, both measuring the exact standard height, though one is really almost a horse and double the size of the other. This cannot be avoided. There are also many ways of preparing a pony for measurement, and these are now almost as well understood by the English polo player as they always have been by the racing man, who has to get his big pony as low as possible; and though the present system of measurement is as fair as can be, and the official measurer absolutely strict and impartial, you will find to-day that very many, if not most, of the polo ponies playing in England, if taken as they stand on the ground and the measuring-stick put over them, will run up certainly to 143 and many close on to 15 hands. In fact it was an open admission to me years ago by one of the prominent players, who dealt largely in ponies, that he never bought an expensive pony unless it was close on 15 hands and had passed the standard, as he could not sell it again.

It will be argued that the American team was playing on the same height of ponies as the English one. Granted; but they were a picked team, mounted on the very best money could buy, ponies that could race, stop, turn, handy as ladies'-maids and quick as lightning, and they had set themselves by constant practice

together to win this game. But above all, they and their ponies were hard, and by long training their muscles and wrists were able to command their sticks, which were lighter than ours, with cigar-shaped ends, which to my mind is far the best shape, though it may occasionally lift a ball. And not only by their ponies, but by their command of their sticks also, they were able to hit the ball as and how they wished, and by their excellent drill pass it one to the other as the occasions required. No, you may say what you like, they outrode and outplayed us, and it is a lesson that I know is much taken to heart by our own polo world.

I am told that the Americans fully realise the advantage of being near the ground with a light stick (which should have a little bit of spring in it), and that they intend in the future, as far as they are able, to reduce, and not increase, the height of their ponies in consequence. There is no reason why we should not try to do the same. I do not say that we shall have better players than we have to-day, for many are of the best, but we shall have more of them, and the best men will be able to play better.

Unfortunately it is a very delicate question how to rectify the present condition of the game in this respect, even if it should be desired to do so, for the present game and the present height of ponies are now all so firmly and widely

established, and the different interests involved are so many and powerful, that it would be next door to impossible to do so, except by a general consensus of opinion, and by slow degrees. Personally, I think it is a pity this great game has come to be played on such very high ponies, and I most sincerely hope that the powers that be will not only do their utmost to prevent the height of ponies from being increased, but that the players in their own interest will also endeavour to get it down to and keep it at a real 14.2, which it is not at present, and which is quite high enough, if it is not too high. In fact 14 hands, as I have advocated for many years, makes a better game, for 14 hands can carry any weight required, can gallop quite fast enough, and being closer to the ground, admits of superior play.

I have always thought that the increase in the height of ponies has been due to a desire for weight rather than for speed, and to the idea that if your pony was a little bit larger and heavier than your adversary's, you were able to jostle and ride him off easier; and so every body strove to get a pony a bit bigger than his neighbour, and from laxity of measurement the height kept on gradually increasing. It certainly was so in India. But whatever the standard height in the measurement, you are bound to get differences in pace and weight in

the ponies. Of course, it is urged that you cannot obtain a sufficiency of the smaller ponies, but I am not sure

that that is the case even in England, and it certainly does not apply to the East and the hot countries, where the natural height of horses and ponies runs much lower than in other countries. For instance, India, Arabia, Australia, and South America produce really firstclass ponies of a smaller height. The height of the real high-caste Arab horse is only 14 1. There are plenty of all these breeds in England at the present moment, and I myself have had many of all of them, and all really first-class polo ponies, fast, handy, and up-to-date. I had an Australian, an Argentine, and an Indian countrybred which played in tournaments at Hurlingham for many years, and there have been many of these, as well as Arabs, that have done so, and

the Arab is now common in this country; but all of them would now be called undersized.

All I have said is only an expression of my own opinion, but it is given after long experience, and is dictated now by the real love I have for the game, which is quite the very best of all the sports of its kind and the finest possible training for any man. I have no desire to set up my opinion against those of the present day who have had as much experience of the game of later days as I have, and probably more; but I am confident that if they will read without prejudice what I have said with regard to the height of ponies and the unwieldiness of the stick, and endeavour by degrees to reduce the height of the ponies, they will find they will play a much surer, better, and more enjoyable game.

AND ADDISON

OBSCURORUM VIRORUM.'

If we look at the records of the past, we are struck by nothing so forcibly as by the uniformity of human life. One age differs from another in style and costume, in wit and wisdom, in virtue and courage. Moral standards standards shift and sway. Genius comes and goes as it chooses. But life has been lived with the same purposes and in accordance with the same rules from the beginning of time. There has probably never been a century in which the art of advertisement has not flourished. He who has had something to sell has always desired to find a buyer. He has displayed his wares where best he might catch the public eye. He has used his friends as agents of distribution. He has implored his clients to spread abroad the excellent worth of his commodities. Those whom the voice of interested persons failed to reach were attracted, no doubt, by words inscribed upon walls and scaffoldings. With the introduction of periodical literature a new and a better way was discovered. If the journals made known to their readers the enterprises of

EPISTOLÆ

art and commerce, these enterprises, in exchange, did their best to support the journalists in affluence. At the outset of the eighteenth century, advertisement, as we know it to-day, was perfectly understood, and The Spectator' of Steele and Addison made its appeal to the public, and filled its coffers by precisely the same methods which our modern newspapers have made familiar. 'The Spectator' was, in the slang of these days, a good "medium." It might, we imagine, charge a high rate, because it fell into the proper hands. It was to be seen in the coffee-houses; it lay upon my lady's table; it was read by those who set the fashion and guided the taste of the town. As an arbiter of letters and the drama it was supreme, and it is hardly fanciful to suppose that its word of commendation might help to fill a theatre, or to sell an edition. If, then, we wish to reconstruct the social life of Queen Anne's reign, we cannot do better than study the advertisements of 'The Spectator,' which have served Mr Lawrence Lewis1 for an entertain

ing and wrong-headed little book.

The age of Anne resembled in not a few points our present age. It had the same wants; it knew the same weaknesses. It pursued by the like devious methods the same phantoms. Above all, it hoped to arrive at health and beauty by short cuts, and the purveyors of patent medicines and quack nostrums were as ready to humour it as these gentry are to deceive the sanguine sufferers of our own day. Here are a dozen practitioners eager to cure the small-pox, the king's evil, rheumatism, gout, or what you will. Here are experienced operators ready to "sweat, bathe, or cup" their patients. That eminent empiric, Sir William Read himself, whom the Queen had consulted and made a knight, did not disdain to make known his prowess in the columns of The Spectator.' Surely, if any understood the

art

of advertising it was he. Once a mountebank, he had doubtless proclaimed his skill from the front of a booth. Moreover, like many another eminent physician, he knew what might be accomplished by proper entertainment. "He makes admirable punch," said Swift, "and treats you in gold vessels." A long experience of country fairs had taught him to blow his own trumpet, and this he did to excellent purpose. "Sir William Read," thus runs the best contrived of his advertisements, "principal Oculist, having been lately sent for to

attend several patients in Norfolk and Suffolk, is, at their Request, for the Publick Good, obliged to publish the Success he met with in the following Cures perform'd by him there, viz., the Lady Yollop, aged 70, Couched of a Cataract, and restor❜d to Sight; Mr Carter, an Attorney, aged 75, restor❜d to perfect Sight," and so on. With the utmost prudence, Read puts the necessity of proclaiming

his wonderful

cures upon his patients, and hopes to win, at a blow, a discreet reputation for modesty and a wider field for the exercise of his talents. All advertisers have not the mountebank's touch, but all acclaim their superiority over rivals and their skill in combating fashionable complaints. And nothing follows the fashion more obediently than disease. Where to day we read of anæmia and neuritis, we heard then of hypochondriack melancholy and the vapours, instantly cured by admirable confects, famous drops, or angelick snuffs. Quacks are not alone in the desire of publicity. To The Spectator' resorted also those who had lost watches or snuff - boxes, dogs or lace, jewels or lottery-tickets. As you read, the whole panorama of life passes before you. To-day "Hamlet is to be performed at the desire of several Ladies of Quality"; to-morrow Mr Penkethman takes his benefit at Drury Lane in "The Amorous Widow, or the Wanton Wife," with Mrs Oldfield, Doggett, Wilks, and Johnson in the cast. What would we not