The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-09-11 00:00:00

MIDDLESEX COUNTY COURT,

TUB BATTLE or THE Books.—Julius Thomas Bentley, a
tall, thin young gentleman, attired after the approved fashion
of Sir Edward Lytton Buiwer, and whose abundant crop of
hair, overshadowing a pale hatchet-shaped face, rendered it
almost impossible to decide accurately upon the reality of his
gender, appeared to sustain a summons against John Joseph
Warburton. Both of the litigants, in dress and manner,
formed so complete a counterpart of each other, that the two
otnios, or the two Sociog, were thrown altogether into the
shade. It appeared that they were both distinguished mem-
bers of a literary society—they had read, spelt, and whistled
together ; they had interchanged their books, and ditto their
sentiments thereupon ; in short, as the author of Christabel

" They had been friends in youth,
But whispering tongues can poison truth."
The jealously of the literary character is as proverbial as
its irritability ; a quarrel ensued upon the subject of their
studies. Julius Thomas Bentley was a very passionate ad-
mirer of the deep (!) and searching (!) philosophy of the
dandy baronet who immortalised the ruffian Paul Clifford,
and the cut-throat Eugene Aram. While upon the other
hand John Joseph Warburton, who prided himself on being
a descendant of the polemical dignitary of that name, held
Sir Edward and all his works in the most ineffable contempt,
and, in the true spirit of his annotating ancestor, he had
pretty freely expressed his opinions by sundry marginal notes,
scribbled upon a number of volumes that had been lent to
him by the said Julius Thomas Bentley. This was the head
and front of his offending, and for which he was doomed, like
the author of the " Divine Legation," to get considerably
roasted and annoyed. The first intimation John Joseph
Warburton received of the implacable anger of Mr. Julius
Bentley was through the medium of the following note :
" Mr. Julius Thomas Bentley requests Mr. John Joseph
Warburton to make good the books he's spoiled a scribbling
over them, as follows X s. d.

" For spoiling Huine's Essays.
For damaging Lytton Bulwer
For spoiling the Penny Magazine .. 0 3 0
For spoiling Wordsworth's Poems .. OIS 0
For spoiling abook 1 don't mention.. 0 6 6

SPORTING INTELLIGENCR

DONCASTER. RACES, 1840,

There is not a sporting event in the whole year, or for
many years antecedent to the present, which has caused in
the sporting world so great a sensation as the approaching
far-famed Doncaster Races,—more particularly on account
of the Great St. Leger, which, in all parts of the globe where
the finest breed of horses is known and admired, never fails
to send forth its speculators to witness the momentous re-
sult appertaining to the three-year-olds ' • and it now may be
questioned whether at any former period the interest was so
great as at the present time, in consequence, of the high pa-
tronage which royalty has bestowed upon the principal races
in the country--Ascot and Epsom having been witnessed by
the Queen and Prince Albert, in addition to the plendid cor-
tege of a great portion of the Court from Windsor. The
number of visiters at Goodwood was also extremely nume-
rous and fashionable ; and even that at Newcastle-upon-
Tyne surpassed all former occasions, the number by railway
alone amounting to 95,000 ! The York August Meeting also
greatly increased its attendance by similar means. Such
having been the fact elsewhere, Doncaster cannot fail to
augment its numbers in consequence of the opening of the
North Midland Railway throughout the whole line, some
branches of which are contiguous to this renowned meeting.
The great emporium will pour out its immense speculators
and admirers, as will also the towns by which the North
Midland is fed—Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry,
Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Chesterfield, Rotherham,
Sheffield, Barnsley, Wakefield, Leeds, York, &c., besides
all the large towns of Lancashire (Liverpool and Manchester
in particular), as well as the northern parts of the kingdom.
It may, therefore, be confident!y anticipated, that this will
be the most splendid meeting ever known in Doncaster.
Various improvements have, we hear, bean made ; such as
the formation of a betting-ring, on the same plan as at Ain-
, tree and other places, which will leave the ladies full scope
for a promenade in the Long Room, unmolested by that
noise and confusion which has hitherto prevailed.