"The Rejected Addresses" got upon his crutches about three o'clock in the morning, and I made my exit with the rest, thanking Heaven, that, though in a strange country, my mother tongue was the language of its men of genius.
LETTER LXX.
LONDON—VISIT TO A RACE-COURSE—GIPSIES—THE PRINCESS VICTORIA—SPLENDID APPEARANCE OF THE ENGLISH NOBILITY—A BREAKFAST WITH ELIA AND BRIDGET ELIA—MYSTIFICATION—CHARLES LAMB'S OPINION OF AMERICAN AUTHORS.
I have just returned from Ascot races. Ascot Heath, on which the course is laid out, is a high platform of land, beautifully situated on a hill above Windsor Castle, about twenty-five miles from London. I went down with a party of gentlemen in the morning and returned at evening, doing the distance, with relays of horses in something less than three hours. This, one would think, is very fair speed, but we were passed continually by the "bloods" of the road, in comparison with whom we seemed getting on rather at a snail's pace.
The scenery on the way was truly English—one series of finished landscapes, of every variety of combination. Lawns, fancy-cottages, manor-houses, groves, roses and flower-gardens make up England. It surfeits the eye at last. You could not drop a poet out of the clouds upon any part of it I have seen, where, within five minutes' walk, he would not find himself in Paradise.
We flew past Virginia Water and through the sun-flecked shades of Windsor Park, with the speed of the wind. On reaching the Heath, we dashed out of the road, and cutting through fern and brier, our experienced whip put his wheels on the rim of the course, as near the stands as some thousands of carriages arrived before us would permit, and then, cautioning us to take the bearings of our position, lest we should lose him after the race, he took off his horses, and left us to choose our own places.
A thousand red and yellow flags were flying from as many snowy tents in the midst of the green heath; ballad-singers and bands of music were amusing their little audiences in every direction; splendid markees covering gambling-tables, surrounded the winning-post; groups of country people were busy in every bush, eating and singing, and the great stands were piled with row upon row of human heads waiting anxiously for the exhilarating contest.
Soon after we arrived, the King and royal family drove up the course with twenty carriages, and scores of postillions and outriders in red and gold, flying over the turf as majesty flies in no other country; and, immediately after, the bell rang to clear the course for the race. Such horses! The earth seemed to fling them off as they touched it. The lean jockeys, in their party-colored caps and jackets, rode the fine-limbed, slender creatures up and down together, and then returning to the starting-post, off they shot like so many arrows from the bow.
Whiz! you could tell neither color nor shape as they passed across the eye. Their swiftness was incredible. A horse of Lord Chesterfield's was rather the favorite; and for the sake of his great-grandfather, I had backed him with my small wager, "Glaucus is losing," said some one on the top of a carriage above me, but round they swept again, and I could just see that one glorious creature was doubling the leaps of every other horse, and in a moment Glaucus and Lord Chesterfield had won.
The course between the races is a promenade of some thousands of the best-dressed people in England. I thought I had never seen so many handsome men and women, but particularly men. The nobility of this country, unlike every other, is by far the manliest and finest looking class of its population. The contadini of Rome, the lazzaroni of Naples, the paysans of France, are incomparably more handsome than their superiors in rank, but it is strikingly different here. A set of more elegant and well-proportioned men than those pointed out to me by my friends as the noblemen on the course, I never saw, except only in Greece. The Albanians are seraphs to look at.