on the outside of the coach, was half smothered with the dust, and
arrived in a very deteriorated condition, but recompensed for it by the
extraordinary sights we had witnessed. There was no train in those days,
and the whole road between London and Epsom was choked with vehicles of
all kinds, from four-in-hands to donkey-carts and wheelbarrows. My
friends and I mingled freely in the crowds, and saw all the "humours" of
the occasion. The thimble-riggers were out in great force, with their
light, movable tables, the cups or thimbles, and the "little jokers,"
and the coachman, the sham gentleman, the country greenhorn, all
properly got up and gathered about the table. I think we had "Aunt
Sally," too,--the figure with a pipe in her mouth, which one might shy a
stick at for a penny or two and win something, I forget what. The
clearing the course of stragglers, and the chasing about of the
frightened little dog who had got in between the thick ranks of
spectators, reminded me of what I used to see on old "artillery
election" days.

It was no common race that I went to see in 1834. "It is asserted in the
columns of a contemporary that Plenipotentiary was absolutely the best
horse of the century." This was the winner of the race I saw so long
ago. Herring's colored portrait, which I have always kept, shows him as
a great, powerful chestnut horse, well deserving the name of "bullock,"
which one of the jockeys applied to him. "Rumor credits Dr. Holmes," so
"The Field" says, "with desiring mentally to compare his two Derbies
with each other." I was most fortunate in my objects of comparison. The
horse I was about to see win was not unworthy of being named with the
renowned champion of my earlier day. I quote from a writer in the
"London Morning Post," whose words, it will be seen, carry authority
with them:--

"Deep as has hitherto been my reverence for Plenipotentiary, Bay
Middleton, and Queen of Trumps from hearsay, and for Don John, Crucifix,
etc., etc., from my own personal knowledge, I am inclined to award the
palm to Ormonde as the best three-year-old I have ever seen during close
upon half a century's connection with the turf."

Ormonde, the Duke of Westminster's horse, was the son of that other
winner of the Derby, Bend Or, whom I saw at Eaton Hall.

Perhaps some coeval of mine may think it was a rather youthful idea to
go to the race. I cannot help that. I was off on my first long vacation
for half a century, and