yet his attractions are as great, and his audiences as overflowing as over. The truth is, in his strength and weakness Gough is the very personification of an Exeter Hall orator. You may object to his exaggerations—you may find fault with his digressions—you may pooh-pooh his arguments—you may question the good taste of some of his allusions—you may wonder how people can applaud, and laugh at, or weep over, what they have applauded, or laughed at, or wept over a dozen times before: but they do; that no one can deny.
Gough spoke for nearly two hours. Evidently the audience could have listened, had he gone on, till midnight. We often hear that the age of oratory has gone by—that the press supersedes the tongue—that the appeal must henceforth be made to the reader in his study, not to the hearer in the crowded hall. There is much truth in that. Nevertheless, the true orator will always please his audience, and true oratory will never die. The world will always respond to it. The human heart will always leap up to it. The finest efforts of the orator have been amongst civilised audiences. It was a cultivated audience before whom Demosthenes pleaded; to whom,
standing on Mars-hill, Paul preached of an unknown God. The true orator, like the true poet, speaks to all. He gathers around him earth’s proudest as well as poorest intellects. Notwithstanding, then, the march of mind, oratory may win her triumphs still. So long as the heart is true to its old instinct—so long as it can pity, or love, or hate, or fear, it will be moved by the orator, if he can but pity or love, or hate or fear himself. This is the true secret. This is it that made Gough the giant that he is. Without that he might be polished, learned, master of all human lore; but he would be feeble and impotent as the
“Lorn lyre that ne’er hath spoken
Since the sad day its master chord was broken.”
THE DERBY.
Is there a finer sight in creation than a horse? I don’t speak of the wild horse of the prairie, as seen at Astley’s—nor of the wearied animal by means of which the enterprising greengrocer transports his wares from Covent-Garden to the Edgware-road—nor of the useful but commonplace looking cob on which Jones trusts himself timidly as he ventures on a constitutional ride, while his groom, much better mounted, follows scornfully behind—nor of the broken-down, broken-knee’d, spavined, blind roarer, all the summer of whose life has been passed in dreary drudgery, and for whom nought remains but the knacker’s yard, and the cold calculations of the itinerant vendors of cat’s-meat; but of a horse such as a monarch might pet, and the very queen of beauty might deign to ride—a horse such as Gamarra.
“A noble steed,
Strong, black, and of the desert breed,
Full of fire and full of bone,
All his line of fathers known,
Fine his nose, his nostrils thin,
But blown abroad by the pride within.”
And who that has ever laid his leg across such, and bounded along the turf, does not feel that the bare memory of it is a joy for ever, thrilling almost as Love’s young dream? Such was our good fortune once; now we creep into town on the top of a ’bus, and our hair is grey, and our pluck is gone, and our heart no larger than a pin’s head.
To write about London, and to omit all mention of the Derby, were unpardonable. At the Royal Academy Exhibition this year, the rush to see Mr. Frith’s picture of the Derby was so great that a policeman was required to keep off the crowd. Horse-racing is the natural result of horse-riding. It is essentially the English sport. Taking Wetherby’s Calendar as our guide, we may calculate that in 1855 there were 144 meetings in Great Britain and Ireland, which were attended by 1606 horses, of whom only 680 were winners, fed by £60,000 of added money inclusive of the value of cups and whips, and diffusing £198,000 in added money and stakes more or less. If there were no light weights to ride, and no noblemen or wealthy commoners to run their horses, the horses would run of their own accord. There are horses, as there are men, who never
will play second fiddle if they can possibly avoid it; and if horses run, men will look and admire, and the natural result is the Derby Day. A grander sight of its kind is perhaps hardly to be seen. For twelve months have the public been preparing for the event. For twelve months has the sporting and the betting world been on the qui vive. We do not bet, for we hold that the custom is absurd in a rich man, and wicked in one who is not so; but in every street in London, in every town in England, in many a quiet village, at the beer-shop, or the gin-palace, or the public-house, bets have been made, and thousands and thousands of pounds are depending on the event. As the time draws nigh the excitement increases. Had you looked in at Tattersall’s on the previous Sunday, you would have seen the betting of our West End swells and M.P.’s who legislate for the observance of the Sabbath, and who punish poor men for keeping betting-houses—fast and furious. On the previous night of the day when the Derby is run a motley population encamp on the Downs. There are booths where there are to be dancing, and drinking, and eating, and gambling. There are gipsies who are to tell fortunes, and acrobats who are to exhibit