e write of, "Old Crutch," too, with his scaffolding
under his arm, and disabled limb dangling like a loose girth from
his rosinante's side, a quadruped equalling the Dollar's mount in
beauty,--might have been seen side by side with Lord Chesterfield,
on his thoroughbred, and addressing him in all the Timbobbinish
horrors of his frightful vernacular. My lord was then in the zenith
of his good looks and humour, and was, moreover, so well upon
Cotherstone, that he saw graces in Old Crutch's physog, with the
charming "thousand to forty" he hoped to draw him of on the Tuesday
_prochain_,--that he joked and rattled with the uncouth old cripple
in undisguised merriment. With these might have been noticed the
elegant form of Lord Wilton, on his roan, shaded again by a
round-shouldered knave from Manchester, with ungloved hands and snub
nose, who had "potted the crack" for his special line of action. His
yeoman Grace of Limbs, fresh and hearty as a summer gale, mounted on
his Blue-eyed Maid, loomed in stalwart manhood by the side of some
pallid greek or city trader, having a word of greeting and jollity
for all alike, for _he_ was there for the sake of sport, and had no
anxiety beyond his "pony."

The _Heavies_, as Thornhill of Riddlesworth, Sir Hercules
Fitzoutlawe, and poor fatty Sutherland, together with my Lord
Miltown, from his not being particularly adapted for an equestrian
display, appeared in their several chariots on the outskirts of the
ring, an occasional lull in the wordy tumult permitting the
Irishman's lisping scream to penetrate the dense and agitated
circle, in his praiseworthy efforts to do business. Old Crocky, too,
was there, mounted on a subdued wretch of the horse-species,
tenanted, according to the Pythagorean doctrine, by the evil spirit
of some defunct croupier, and ready to "return on the nick" as
usual. In this "mess tossed up of Hockley-Hole and White's," in
addition to our foregoing inventory, were dukes and butchers....

But these are perhaps enough. Has the crowd on the hill changed much
since the forties? The Ring roars no longer round a gibbet, of course; a
Grand Stand of vast dimensions overlooks the course from starting-gate
to paddock; dukes no longer ride side by side with butchers to make
bets. But the crowd itself, and what the crowd does, and what it sees
and feels--all