his Belgravian home to the costermonger sipping his tea in a Holborn alley, there is throughout London one universal resolve to enjoy the day. At present, all is smile and sunshine, the future is banished. The thief, who to-night will lie with blackened eyes and bruised mouth in the dark cell of the stone jug,' is now rampant and roistering; the betting man worth thousands, who to-night will be looking furtively at his pistol-case, is now exultingly dotting up his betting-book; the betting-book soon to be filled up with terrifying numerals lies now pure and blank in its owner's desk. But away with these carrion-crow thoughts! for the sun casts a splendour over town and country, and thousands are now awaking with one thought, 'It is the Derby day,' uppermost in their minds.

Parliament has suspended its labours to go to the Derby; fashionable doctors let death do his worst for one day; merchants leave their offices. Business, for one day only -positively only one day-lets forth her voluntary prisoners, and a universal saturnalia is proclaimed. The betting men with the tight legs, the straddling walk, and the whip ever to their teeth, are in the seventh heaven, for the Derby day, the Derby day is come at last. The solitary bachelor on Christmas Day, or the cripple in a hunting-field, is not more to be pitied than the unhappy man who has to stop in London and work on the Derby day,-that day of delirious pleasure and temporary insanity. To-day bets will be decided, from Mr. Merry's 50,000l. to Bob the ostler's half a crown. Could all the sovereigns laid on this year's Derby be laid down, why they would pave all Piccadilly from the Marble Arch to Bond Street.

The excitement that before daybreak began to rouse London on the Derby day commences about eight or nine o'clock to assume an organized shape. The names of the running horses are talked about in the streets, and Jack the ostler at the Black Bull, the man with the red hair and black eyes, has just had information from Tom the ostler, with the red eyes and black hair, the man over

the way, that the feller who bets on Buckstone will certainly touch the shiners, or he's a Dutchman;' and this oracular information Jack retails to the cabmen at the nearest stand, who shrug up their capes and simultaneously wink in the most crafty and turfy manner. Already, as the golden hands of St. Paul's point to 'Ix,' armies of carriages are on the move, and vehicles of all ages and conditions begin to fill the roads leading to Epsom. The Westminster Road, the Kennington Road, and Blackfriars Road present so many distinct motly processions. The black mass is blossomed over with green veils, extemporary flags, and rosettes. The brass and silver harnesses shine gaily, the drivers' coats look glossy new; pretty faces, and blowsy faces, and sly faces, and hideous faces, peep from vans, jolly publicans bowl along in traps, the young gentleman with the cornet on the Derby omnibus favours us with The Cure,' played in a wavering and inconsequential manner; and already the thirsty van from Shoreditch is tapping its huge stone jar of porter, and offering a passing cabman early refreshment.

It is evident that some of our friends will never reach Epsom and never see the Derby, as it takes up some time stopping at the 1348 public-houses between Shoreditch and the Grand Stand at Epsom.

As now the slow ponderous omnibi, the smart dog-carts, the flashing Hansoms, the overloaded spring vans, the dashing drags, the insolent 'shallows,' and the quiet Broughams, get detached from London, the scene becomes more characteristic. The tow-rope is at last cut that joins them to the general traffic of the City. They are now unmistakably 'people going to the Derby,' and form a sight in themselves. The saturnalia has begun; not a sweet little face under a round hat, not a false pasteboard nose, not a fluttering blue veil, nor a funny or demure eye, that is not an object of remark to thousands of spectators, who now towards Clapham begin to cluster along the foot pavement, around public-houses, at windows, and at the gaping doors of

suburban shops. And now the pedestrians, the man in his shirt sleeves with his coat over his shoulder, the sham negro with his music-stand, the Aunt Sally proprietor with his clubs, and the three shies a penny with his truck of sand-bags and cocoa-nuts, begin to join the English carnival, and the country boys in shapeless hats and smock frocks, who cannot throw somersaults or do 'the cart wheel,' begin to offer you birds' nests with blue eggs, whitethorn, and green bunches of oakapple which no effort could carry safe home. The man in the Hansom cab buys a bough of May and sticks it before him as if he was Birnam Wood and was driving post-haste to Dunsinane. The man with the cornet ceases to pity poor Uncle Sam, and pelting next omnibus with blue thrushes' eggs, is instantly touched up with a four-in-hand whip, upon which he leaps down, and offers to fight the whole dragful of 'men in the Guards' for a new hat, which he is told he much wants by the conductor of the next van, who wears a false nose extremely red and of unusual length. The gesticulating men with the white aprons at the toll-gates are past, and now the little family vaults of gardens, the rusty lilac trees, the squares of turf, and the mignionette boxes, lead us on to the country: at the sight of the green expanse of Clapham Common, its ponds, furze, and clumps of trees, there is a general hum of pleasure through the whole procession, for seeing the country is the real final cause of the Derby.

Here

and there at entrance gates carriages are standing ready to start, and neat grooms in white cords and the nattiest of boots wait at the horses' heads.

Now, too, one begins to see the green fan-leaved chestnuts, mountains of blossoming cones, and elms ruffling dark with countless leaves, all glowing with the tenderest green of spring, and spring's sunshine. Through open gates we catch glimpses of ladies and nursemaids at windows, or ladies and gentlemen dressed ready for the carriage, which is coming round directly. There are tigers, too, sitting at garden gates

VOL. II.--NO. VI.

in a ruminative way on luncheon hampers, and the daintiest of servant maids with sly pertness stealing looks over the garden wall.

And now on Dr. Gaster's academy playground wall the young gentlemen are artfully used as advertisements, and drawn up in clean collars and Sunday jackets, and the smiling faces of young ladies who group upon lawns, under cedars, and around lime trees, is something vexatiously bewitching to contemplate, and the passing bachelor

feels seized with a wild desire to whip in his gig and bear off a stray Proserpine, via Epsom.

Towards Tooting there is not an inn where you do not see men in leggings with handsful of hay under their arms, like vegetarians gone mad; expectant landlords standing in 'a Henry the Eighth attitude,' as Leigh Hunt called it, at doorways, and vans already prematurely broken down, stranded by the road-side on slips of dusty turf.

And now the country begins in real earnest. The great uninterrupted green fields spread out, the ripe grass glitters with golden flowers, the lark sings overhead a short piece of music in honour of the Derby, and the thrushes may be heard at intervals from the whitethorn bushes in the orchard, soon to he scared away by the grind and roll of wheels, the clack of whips, the din of hoarse cornets, the missile-like chaff of cabmen, the songs, the shouting, the cries of alarm, the shouts of Dorling's correk card,' with the names of the 'orses, and the names, weights, and colours of the riders;' and the offers of ginger-beer, lozenges, toffy, oranges, and gingerbread nuts; and as with these cries exulting shouters dash or creep by, the respectable people in garden seats on the lawns look on with quiet delight, and just beyond, between the lilacs, the gardener and the maids' snatch a furtive and grinning glance as in one unbroken line, three deep, jerks forward the carnival procession. There is not a fair widow or proud old maid along the road to whom thousands of impertinent kisses are not blown by audacious men on omnibuses on this

G

along the ropes the broughams and drags are moored in one long rampart; ladies, in exquisite spoon' bonnets, are taking down bets in exquisite little books with the greatest anxiety, and the most delightful ignorance of what they are doing. Far away, totally indifferent to the race, the hard lot of the hideous fetish-smoking, ill-conditioned Aunt Sally begins; and the 'rainy season' of bludgeons has opened. Near her hut, divided by curtain walls, the 'three shies a penny' is prosecuted; and the cocoa-nut's hairy skull is every moment chipped, with much effusion of milk, and beyond all hopes of trepanning. Farther

on the treacherous yellow pears and gilt pincushions illustrate painfully to the passers-by the beautiful and inevitable laws of gravitation. In the sparring booth artful muscular men, in highlows, carry on their mimic war; and just beyond the supper tent you narrowly escape the fate of Saint Sebastian from amateur archers, who hit everything but the target. Yes, indeed, except for London horses, this is indeed a day of pleasure.

Arriving too late, of course, for the first race, which is to the Derby only what the tuning is to the overture, we are just in time for the

Event.' The black lines of people begin to huddle closer; the customers of the distant amusements collect nearer to the ropes; the luncheon hampers have a temporary respite; there is an uneasy ebb and flow of humanity; the thousands going this way meet the thousands going the other way and jostle for a passage, especially in places barred by gesticulating and coldly-logical policemen. Dwarf jockeys pass through the crowd, who observe them with respect, and pretend to know who they are and whose horses they are going to ride. Turfing men shout to anybody in a maniacal and eye-rolling way-3 to 1 on Marquis.' 7 to 2 against Buckstone.' '8 to 1 against Neptunus.' '11 to I against Argonaut. And these warcries are answered by

I can find no one who knows the name of the favourite, or who'll tell me which is Merry's horse; from which I conclude that two-thirds of the crowd are greenhorns, and don't come to bet or see the horses race at all, but only to get fresh air and enjoy a rational though exciting holiday.

Having just bought a blue card of the horses for sixpence, and discovered it, to my infinite chagrin, to be one of last year's, I suddenly feel my toes trod on, and, looking angrily round, receive an oily apology from a cloven-hoofed man with a horsy look, who, observing that 'the late Lord George Bentinck used to remark to me that on the turf and under the turf all men are equal,' glides thus easily into conversation, and kindly offers to tell me the winning horse; but, singularly enough, just as I am bending to hear the oracle whisper, he disappears at the sight of a policeman, who evidently knows him, and I am left in the blindest ignorance, with a last year's card, and surrounded by people who don't seem to know even the favourite's name.

The farmers and citizens, the boys looking for bottles, and men putting up dangerous expedients for breaking legs with planks and barrels, jam closer together; and now the enclosure round the Grand Stand is a Babel with the voices of frantic betters.

Every one is eager about he knows not what, crazed he knows not why, and clamorous about something or some one, so infectious is excitement, and so much of the sheepflock element is there in most of us.

But, hark! the bell rings-ominous warning to some-the deathtoll of a thousand fortunes. Now, could we but see them, countless shoals of golden sovereigns float by us, ready for the lucky winner's net.

Now, before the steady, unwavering cordon of policemen, the unwilling and remonstrating crowd slowly scatter and retire. Every now and then a little over-dressed gent with a fussy wife, or a swell who has