and emotional mind was that the mirth and hilarity displayed by his
compatriots upon Epsom race-course was Italian rather than English in
its character. On the other hand, Gustave Dore, who also saw the Derby
for the first and only time in his life, exclaimed, as he gazed with
horror upon the faces below him, _Quelle scene brutale!_ We wonder
to which of these two impressions Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes inclined, if
he went last Wednesday to Epsom! Probably the well-known, etc., etc.--Of
one thing Dr. Holmes may rest finally satisfied: the Derby of 1886 may
possibly have seemed to him far less exciting than that of 1834; but
neither in 1834 nor in any other year was the great race ever won by a
better sportsman or more honorable man than the Duke of Westminster."

My desire to see the Derby of this year was of the same origin and
character as that which led me to revisit many scenes which I
remembered. I cared quite as much about renewing old impressions as
about getting new ones. I enjoyed everything which I had once seen all
the more from the blending of my recollections with the present as it
was before me.

The Derby day of 1834 was exceedingly windy and dusty. Our party, riding
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