When the sons of Woden are admitted into Valhalla, it will be an incomplete Elysium for some of us, maugre the perennial flow of ale and the ?sthetic fancy of the goblets, unless the good steed Hengst, whom we have so loved on earth, be permitted resurrection. Alick and Jimmy Hunter would miss Romeo. Could Cornborough be excluded from any realm of bliss which contained \'Dolly\' Goldsmith? How superior were those grand horses, not to mention The Premier and Rory O\'More, in all their attributes to the average human individual, about whose title to such noble immortality there is no question. I cannot believe that they are doomed to extinction, to eternal oblivion. They are dead and gone, doubtless. But lest any reader of these memories should lack future opportunity of feasting his eyes upon those wondrous equine shapes, I essay faintly to recall their leading characteristics.

Romeo, son of Sir Hercules and Pasta, was a golden chestnut, with a narrow blaze and white hind legs. Originally imported to Tasmania from England, he was in 1842 located at Miamamaluke Station on the \'Devil\'s River\' in Victoria, then the property of the Messrs. Hunter. He died in my possession some years later, and, as I used to look at him for at least half an hour every day for the first few months of ownership, I may, without presumption, attempt a pen-and-ink portrait.

Not a large horse—he might almost be classified as small, indeed, compared with modern fashionable families, but of superb symmetry and superfine quality. \'A head light and lean,\' though scarcely equal to The Premier\'s, his neck was of 378moderate length, with a delicately-marked crest. But his shoulder! Never have I seen mortal horse with such another. It was a study. So oblique was it; so graceful and elastic was the fore-action in consequence, that you wondered how horses of less perfect mechanism got on at all. His back was short, his croup high. The finely formed, silken-haired tail, which after his death hung in my room, was set on like that of an Arab. He might easily have been ridden without a girth to the saddle. Though his back appeared to be hardly the length of one, he stood over more ground than horses that looked bigger in every way. His barrel was rounded and well ribbed up. Below the knee and hock the legs were admirably clean and flat-boned, with pasterns just long enough to give the elastic motion which so peculiarly distinguishes the thoroughbred.

In those days (I was young, to be sure) I occasionally relieved my pent-up feelings by the perpetration of verse. In an old scrap-book are traced certain \'Lines to a Thoroughbred\' which must have been inspired by Romeo. They commence—
Is he not glorious, in the high beauty proud,
Which from his desert-spurning Arab sires
To him was given? Mark the frontlet broad!
The delicate, pointed ear, and silken mane,
Scarce coarser than the locks which Delia boasts,
Attest his stainless race, etc.

Allusion was also made, if I mistake not, to a problematic ancestor, the well-ridden steed of the poets, who after
Children\'s voices greet the rescued sire,

became \'a cherished playmate, loving and beloved.\' Though high-tempered enough, Romeo was a good-humoured horse in the main, but the companionship of grooms and stable-boys had partly rubbed off the inherited gentillesse of the desert. Notably in one particular.

Whether he had been in some way teased or troubled, or that some mischievous groom had been at the pains to teach him the specific trick, I cannot say; but the fact was notorious that if any one—in or near the stable—made a noise with the mouth, like the drawing of a cork, the old 379horse fell into a paroxysm of rage and went open-mouthed at all and sundry being within reach at the time.

The knowledge of this peculiarity was turned to account more than once as a practical joke, sometimes with results more or less unpleasant to the unsuspecting bystander. But the joke occasionally recoiled. I happen to know of one instance. A well-known veterinary surgeon of those days, one Mr. Robertson—afterwards drowned in the Goulburn, poor fellow!—happened to be paying a visit of inspection, when a thoughtless friend made the cork-drawing signal. It was Romeo versus Robertson, with a vengeance. Like a wild horse of the prairies, he charged the astonished vet, a resolute active man, who had all he could do to protect himself with a heavy, cutting whip which he fortunately carried at the time. He got out of the box unharmed, but seriously ruffled and demoralised.

The first thing which occurred to him, however, on banging the door of the loose-box behind him, was to lay his whip with hearty goodwill and emphasis across the shoulders of the humourist. Robertson was a burly Scot of more than average physique. His blood was up, and I do not recall the fact of the author of this unusually keen jest making effective resistance. He probably was cured of that particular form of joking, and learned practically that horseplay is one of the games in which two can engage. I never knew the old horse to commit unprovoked assaults, and think that some unusual experience must have led to the tendency described.

Though ordinarily well-behaved, it will be noted that there was a savour of dangerous dealing when aroused, and, as might be expected, a few of his progeny were not famous for the mildness of their tempers. They were, however, handsome and distinguished-looking, good in every relation of equine life. They supplied for many years a regular contingent to all the races in Victoria, and, indeed, within a widely extended radius round Kalangadoo and beyond the South Australian border. Few indeed were the meets, metropolitan or provincial, in which a Romeo colt or filly did not figure in the first flight. Latterly he became the property of Mr. Hector Norman Simson, from whose stud the celebrated Flying Doe and other cracks were evolved.

Young Romeo, Baroness, Countess, and Clinker had all won 380reputations on the Flemington race-course—which then presented a somewhat different appearance—before 1842. Young Romeo, a handsome, upstanding, dark chestnut horse, then the property of Captain Brunswick Smyth of the 50th Regiment, was raffled, in 1843, I think for a hundred and fifty guineas. We took a five-guinea ticket, but my drawing, innocently young as I then was, did not carry the proverbial gambler\'s luck. Oberon, a sweet little white-faced chestnut that Dr. David Thomas used to drive somewhat unprofessionally as tandem leader about Melbourne in 1851, was one of the later offspring. The worthy doctor, ever ready for a lark, delighted in getting Oberon\'s head over the shoulders of stout old gentlemen in the street before they were aware of him or his chariot.

It was somewhere near the end of the \'forties,\' those pioneering years paving the way to the golden era which set in for Australia shortly after their decease. I happened to be in Melbourne upon a cattle speculation. At Kirk\'s Bazaar after breakfast I saw my ideal steed in a loose-box, apparently for sale. After feasting my eyes upon him for a reasonable period, I interviewed Mr. Dalmahoy Campbell, and sought particulars.

The old horse by this time had grown hollow-backed, and was evidently on his last legs. Still at a moderate price he would not be unprofitable, and the value of his blood distributed amid my stud could hardly, I thought, be over-estimated. The main thing to be considered by a prudent young pastoralist (I really was one in those days) was the price. This turned out to be under ￡50. Money was not abundant in that particular year. Stock were ludicrously cheap. For some reason his owners had decided to sell the dear old horse. His age and growing infirmities were against him. Still here was a chance I might never get again. I had just made a largish offer for the store cattle referred to. There was no use talking, however. I felt like a man who had been offered the Godolphin Arabian by a sheik hard-pushed for a ransom. I must have the horse; that was all about it.

There was another slight difficulty. I had not ten ￡5 notes in my pocket. Far otherwise. I stated facts in the office. I can see old \'Dal\'s\' kind face as he said, \'We\'ll take your bill at three months, my boy; that will give you time to 381turn round.\' I gratefully assented, and Romeo—intoxicating thought—was mine. That was my first bill. Never before did I write \'Rolf Boldrewood\' across the face or back or below any of those insidious substitutes for ready money. Would that the negotiable instrument had been my last. Well impressed on my mind was the look of the worthy gentleman who managed the financial department of the firm which had the privilege of \'keeping my account\' when I exultingly informed him of my transaction. He had grown grey in commerce, not altogether successfully. Doubtless memory carried him back for a moment over years of high hope, guarded enterprise, succeeded by wearing anxiety and dull despair. Looking into my youthful, sanguine countenance, he said, \'Take my advice, and never sign another. I wish I had never seen one.\'

I did not take his advice, it is hardly necessary to say. It was many a year before the application came in. Such is the general course of events. But if every future acceptance had been as anxiously considered, as punctually paid, and as profitably contracted as Number One aforesaid, no great harm would have been done.

I rode proudly out of Melbourne next day, leading my valued purchase, duly muzzled and sheeted, along the western road. Travelling by easy stages, only varied by a swim across the Leigh River, \'where ford there was none,\' I got on well. It was an anxious moment for me, though, when the strong current swept my precious steed round in midstream; but he fought gallantly for a landing, which we finally gained. A slip, a stagger, and we were safely over. At Dunmore he received the admiration which was his due, while I was congratulated on my e............