VERTUMNUS—was a horse of some racing celebrity; and there is reason to believe he would have been held in equal estimation with his cotemporaries as a stallion, if he had enjoyed the run of _fashion_ in his favour. He was bred by the late COLONEL O'KELLY; foaled in 1775; got by _Eclipse_, dam by _Sweeper_, out of an old Tartar mare, the dam of _Mercury_ and _Volunteer_. _Vertumnus_ got many tolerable runners as country plate horses; but his merits as a stallion were never known, till a circumstance occurred at a period of life when it was generally considered too late to bring his powers experimentally into action. _Baronet_ was got by _Vertumnus_, dam by _Snap_, out of an own sister to _Nabob_. He was foaled in 1785; bred by Sir W. Vavasour, and by him sold to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who brought him forward from obscurity, at six years old, to start at Ascot Heath for the great Oatlands Stakes of 100 guineas each, _half forfeit_, two miles, forty-one subscribers, for which _nineteen_ started, (forming one of the richest and most striking spectacles ever seen upon the turf,) and was won by _Baronet_; beating _Express_, _Chanticleer_, _Escape_, _Coriander_, _Toby_, _Skylark_, _Precipitate_, _Minos_, _Pipator_, _Euphrosyne_, _Competitor_, _Microscope_, _Crazy_, _Turnip-Top_, _Buzzard_, _Lambinos_, and _Vermin_, who were concluded the best horses in the kingdom. The sums betted were immense, which were sported in the following proportions. Three to one against _Vermin_; seven to one against _Precipitate_; eight to one against _Buzzard_; nine to one against _Chanticleer_; twenty to one against _Baronet_; and one hundred to three against _Express_, who was second. _Vermin_, who was then the best three year old in the kingdom, and carried only five stone, three pounds, was universally expected to win easy; but the diminutive juvenile who rode him, was so hemmed in, and completely surrounded, by the rest _at starting_, that those horses keeping their strokes, and going well together, (or what is sportingly termed all _in a hustle_,) they never afforded him the least chance of extrication.