top of the vehicle and look around. For miles, right and left, are the people. The best part of a million are here assembled; among them are the royal house of Prussia, with their creamcolored team, as well as the poorest ragamuffin, just discharged from Old Bailey, with his stick and crownless hat.—The track is upon a side-hill turf, and is in excellent order. It is a hundred feet wide, but hardly distinguishable in the mingled mass of men. There is a little valley between us and the turf. A continuous rise is used, which affords a fine prospect of the race. The stand is on the other side, and its adjacent booth is perfectly black with heads. All around it for acres is the same phenomena. Now a bell rings. The police march up the track to clear it. Every body is opening baskets. Wines and sodas pop; sandwiches and shrimps appear; pies and birds are demolished, amid cries of "water," "oranges,"" who wants a card of the races?" Fiddling and horn-tooting all around, a fool dancing in woman's clothes, with a red calash on his head, and a parasol, mimicking fine ladies, while the fine ladies in lordly carriages are looking on laughingly; gipsies, wild in look and with eyes. dark and sinister, are roving about.-See, they have that young man! "Tell your fortune, pretty gentleman? You will be fortunate, oh, yes! only leave a gipsy a sixpence, sir; will be a lucky one in the race, sir," and with other like remarks, she hangs on like a snapping turtle. All these scenes are transpiring, while an enormous shout and laugh go up from the crowd along the ropes. The police had cleared the track-it is only a dog or a loafer trying to run across, with a policeman after. Away they go in a mimic race! The coast is clear. lored jockeys mounting. to loosen the horses' joints. by colors. All now is still. rises, "they're off!" The black heads in and around the stand have become a sea of upturned faces. We hear the tramp of horses on the distant turf. Horsemen ride over the hill to catch With a glass, you may see the many co- the sight. Now the race-horses appear around the hill nearly all together; yet so far distant, that they seem to move slowly; soon they begin to be clearly distinguished. "Hurrah for the blue-cap-hurrah for the red!--black cap and pink ahead!" In fine style they dash between the anxious heads. The tug is between the black cap and pink, and blue. Thousands are staked upon the result. The cry is, now for one-now for the other! On they all "bicker and burn to gain the expected goal." In a twinkling they dash home. The number is run up, and the welkin rings and re-rings with the shout of immense multitudes. The track is soon broken over. The throng rushes toward the stand. The Derby is done and won! Millions have been lost and gained. Freely pop the wine bottles of the victors; merrily ring their laughs! Up rise thousands of carrier pigeons to announce the result abroad! Now comes a scene which carries us back to the good old days of Queen Bess-such as Scott describes in his Kenilworth -the days of the tournaments. Rings are formed. Circus sports are going on upon the turf; dancing girls are soon transmuted by some magic from ordinary females; magical gentlemen begin to throw up rings, butcher-knives, etc.; music breaks out from all sides; gipsies burst anew from their tents; andhark!—“'ansum and hinteresting presents for hinfants! only a penny! 'ave one sir?""'Ere's silver-tipped buttons for 'olding coats together-made out of coal!" "Sody-water! Ginger beer-r-r!" and a hundred other cries. Beyond the turf, the manly sports are going on, such as firing at targets, pitching at points, and divers other things to me unknown. The turf was cleared again another race-the same excitement; the air is again filed with pigeons, who dart around for awhile uncertain where to go; then off with their news. Again, we are upon the road homeward, amid the flowery meadows, and the hedges or walls of ivy, and sometimes of flowers. The trees look so trim and perfect. Each for itself seems dressed in living green." As well attempt to separate 66 color from the rainbow, or extension from matter, as Beauty from these vistas made by the lines of elm, flowering chestnut and birch, filled with their little winged singing people. The leaves will grow in freshness, and the robins, thrushes, and larks, like Jenny Lind, must, although they know not why-be "singing." On our road to London, we find every body out to see the "Derby" return. It sometimes comes home boozy. Long arrays of Charity scholars in their uniforms, and boys from school are out, under the charge of masters. Policemen are stationed all along. Within five miles of London, the road is lined ten or twenty deep. Punch and Judy, negro singers, dancers, bag-pipers from Scotland, are mingled with the throng, performing. Every body is privileged to say what comes uppermost. Although an entire stranger amid this crowd of myriads, I drank several imaginary healths from off my seat, to gentlemen with mugs on the top of the walls; exchanged spunk with the spunky, laughs with the good-natured, words with the familiar, and altogether felt at home. Wit and humor followed us through the large commons into the very city. We thought we had left London at Epsom, but the million seemed to be waiting for their horse-racing brethren to return. The moral effect of these vast assemblages, patronized as they are by royalty itself, (for the Queen has her stand,) it is not for me to speak of. The Englishman prepares his "book of bets" a year beforehand, and comes up yearly to offer his incense to his favorite racer. We have in America very few of these sportive gatherings. Some regard it as a great defect in our social organism. Let such remember that the sun, which by its genial heat promotes the growth of vegetation, produces also by its heat the poisonous vapor. We have lost a day from the Exhibition, but we were compensated by many insights into English manners and character, which long months of ordinary residence could not give. We saw a nation forgetful of itself, its dignity, its glory, and the "relict radiance of its past ages," besotting itself with the enthusiasm of beast-racing, and the intoxication of gambling. Can this be the England whose abbeys, monuments, and palaces of stone and crystal, rise so proudly in her metropolis? Strange and uncouth, sounds this revel of racing, amid these hallowed localities, where Antiquity is a presence and a power; as strange and as uncouth as would a vacant laugh or a squeaking fiddle amidst the diapason and "Te Deum," which rolls and swells along the fretted roof of the cathedral ! THRO HROUGH the kindness of our Minister, Mr. LAWRENCE, I received a ticket for the House of Commons. By its potency, I found myself at five last evening occupying (perhaps by mistake) a seat in the little lobby, connected with, and reserved for the House of Lords. The galleries above were pretty full, mostly of Americans; for strangers from the Continent seldom visit the Commons.' ( My company was rather more aristocratic than I had been accustomed to. However, taking a stranger's privilege, I learned from my right-hand man, whom I afterwards found out to be Lord LYNDHURST, the late Lord High Chancellor, and from those in front, one of whom was the Earl of Minto, late Ambassador to Rome, and father-in-law of the Premier-all I wanted to know as to the rules and constitution of the House, repaying them in kind, by answering their queries as to our legislative assemblies. Let me here say, that however exclusive the English nobility seem in the streets and in their houses, there is a perfect courtesy and urbanity among those whom I here observed. There was a full attendance of the Commons, and a large number of the upper house present to hear the discussion on the Catholic bill. The House is opposite Westminster Abbey. You reach the Hall through long passages guarded by several porters. It is not much larger than our Senate room in Columbus, rather |