and a perpetual refrain of sotto voce encouragement to the team, each member of which is addressed by name. So on, cheerily, up the steep red hill, and round the corner by the boys' school, where the lads in the playground give us a shrill shout of welcome, down the descent, and, at a hard gallop, over the glorious breezy Earlswood Common, so often looked at with longing eyes from the railway, and now visited at last! Far away, now, from omnibuses, theatrical managers, and ladies' schools. "Toot-toot!" Give them a taste of your air of health and comfort not unmixed with Dissent; where troops of young ladies, in regimental order, cast demure glances at us as we hurry by, and where the air rings with the overture to Semiramide and Czerny's exercises, which come pealing through the windows of the innumerable "seminaries" in the neighbourhood. Within the three-quarters of an hour we have done our first stage, and arrive at Croydon, where the "change" is awaiting us. The new team, having a longer and a heavier stage to get through, are of a different stamp-two roans, model coach-horn, guard, and let them know we're coming. horses, and two bays. Now, we pass our first toll-bar, Foxley Hatch-pass it, too, unnoticed; for the novelty of the coach's appearance has worn off, and the tollman, secure of his money, does not trouble himself to rise from his seat. Here we come into close proximity with our rival, the rail, dropping down upon him just at what he, in his ridiculous language, calls Caterham Junction, and running parallel with him along that road which all Brighton travellers know so well, where the prettiest miniature farm lies between the railway and the road, and, in the distance, the white chalk quarry gleams in the green face of the hill. Just before arriving at Redhill, at one o'clock, the Hon. Sec., leaning over, tells us that the next stage is horsed by the squire's brother, and will probably be driven by the squire himself. The smile with which the intelligence is received, is false; the ardour with | which the remarkable exclamation, "Oh, indeed?" is uttered is assumed; for, truth to tell, we have never heard of the squire, and have not the remotest idea who he is. Not long are we left in doubt. The four magnificently matched grey horses-the only observable difference in them being that the leaders are a trifle lighter and more" peacocky" than the wheelers-are no sooner "to," than the stouter of the Cheeryble brothers presents himself, gives the team a rapid but apparently satisfactory look over, and then, with singular agility for such a heavily-built man, swings himself to the box. Not much doubt that the compliment paid to him of being the best whip in England is well deserved! One glance, like the celebrated "one trial" of the advertisement, will "prove the fact." Mark the way in which he holds the ribbons, his left hand well down on his thigh; the ease with which he slips into its proper place the rein which the dancing near leader had switched under its tail; the knowledge which points out the exact place where the break should be applied, and the quickness with which he works it. The Colonel had been anecdotical, not to say loquacious; the squire, though perfectly courteous, is not particularly communicative. He is a tall man, and he stands on the splashboard, backed up by, rather than sitting on, his box; so that conversation is more difficult, his mouth being, as it were, out of earshot. But it is evident that he does not think talking business-like, and contents himself with polite replies to leading questions, Pull off to your near side, Taylor, with your enormous cumbersome furniture-van, the two men in the paper caps and the green aprons sitting here, as in London, ever on the tailboard! Run to your leader's head, carter, for he does not like our looks, and is beginning to potter and shy, and will wheel round and have you all in the ditch in an instant, if you don't look out! Morning, farmer! Up goes the elbow of the good old boy's whip-hand in true professional salutation. Cheerily on, past haymakers, leaning on scythes and rakes, and gazing at us with hand-shaded eyes; past brown-skinned tramps, male and female, all sitting with their backs turned to the road, and their feet in the ditch in front of them, and who do not take the trouble to look round at us; past solitary anglers, seen afar off in distant windings of gleaming streams; past lovely ladies playing croquet on smooth lawns, and attended upon by gallant gentlemen, among whom the village curate is conspicuous, until the squire drops his left hand still lower, and brings us up,all standing," at Lowfield Heath, where luncheon is awaiting us. And such a luncheon! arranged, not on the Mugby Junction system, but on the old-fashioned inn principle. Large smoking joint of prime roast beef, delicious potatoes, succulent peas, strawberries, and cheese, for two shillings! We suspect the strawberries were part of the "gala day;" we are certain something else was. the placards hung about the room announced that in addition to the joint we were entitled to "half-a-pint of draught ale;" but we did not have draught ale; we were proffered refreshment from a fat bottle with a tinfoil | cravat, and we felt, with Mr. Tennyson, that, on such an occasion, For Our drooping memory should not shun The foaming grape of Eastern France. So we took it. And the old lady who had been our inside passenger was of one mind with us and Mr. Tennyson. She tried the draught ale, and did not like it, and, beckoning to our friend, Mr. Tedder, who was apparently the only person in whom she believed, asked if she could not have some of "that"-designating the champagne-bottle. She was told that she could have some of it, and she did have some of it, and drank it, and then emulated the behaviour of Oliver Twist in asking for more. We were told that they often had old ladies as inside passengers by the coach. If all are treated in this fashion, we don't wonder at it. The favourite sarcasm of schoolmasters in old days to gobbling youth, that there was no hurry, the coach was not waiting, would have lost its sting on this occasion; for the coach was waiting, but there was no hurry. The proprietors of the Brighton coach are quite aware that they can enter into no competition with the rail; the physician, who is telegraphed for in case of life and death, the bagman, whose chance of securing a large order depends on the speed with which he arrives at his destination, will rattle down by the express. The coach is for those who have leisure, and who wish to enjoy the pleasures of fresh air and lovely scenery, in comfort, so a liberal half hour is allowed for luncheon, and then we start afresh, and after three stages, all admirably horsed, the squire draws up his chesnuts, his favourite team, before the Albion Hotel, on the Steyne at Brighton. And there stands the proprietor, whose talent for catering we proved in bygone years at those capital schools, the Ship at Greenwich, and the Star and Garter at Richmond. So we place ourselves in Mr. Lawrence's hands, letting him do as he likes with us for dinner, and rush off to get rid of the dust in a plunge at Brill's, and to put the keenest edge on to our appetites in a turn up the King's-road afterwards. There can be no doubt that this is a most sensible and enjoyable airing. To a London man it is a splendid panacea for worries and overwork, and city dust and drouth. The novelty of the position makes him forget his business cares, the drive invigorates him, and the pleasant companionship always to be met with, takes him out of himself, and consigns stocks, and shares, and briefs, and leading articles, to temporary oblivion. If he be pressed for time he can come back to town by train, reaching home before eleven the same evening; if he have leisure, he can sleep in Brighton, pitching pebbles off the beach and asking the wild waves what they are saying, during the evening, and renewing his pleasurable impressions in his return journey on the coach the next day. And perhaps it is well for us occasionally to remember the Arabic proverb, that "Hurry is the Devil's," and that, like life, a journey has sometimes such pleasures that we need not fret eagerly to get to the end of it. AS THE CROW FLIES. JUST outside a village a little off the Brighton road, a village so leafy and embowered that twenty years ago the gardens were in summer twilight so noisy with nightingales, that dying persons in that retired hamlet have been known to have had their last trance-like sleeps painfully broken in upon by the sweet unceasing jangle, the crow, swooping down from his "coign of vantage" at St. Paul's, alights on a grave avenue of old ancestral elms. Here you see the special tree of Surrey to perfection. The huge free-grown, close-grained limbs bear aloft with triumphant ease their thick, green clouds of foliage, and, meeting over head, cast a carpet of mottled shadows beneath. This avenue at Cheam (a place skirted by all persons who drive to the Derby) was one of the old approaches to Nonesuch, one of Queen Elizabeth's palaces. Henry the Eighth, following the deer from Hampton Court to the very foot of Banstead Downs, one day, in 1539, took a fancy to the quiet spot where he had rested and dined under the trees after the mort was blown and the deer broken up by the eager knives. He bought the manor of Sir Richard de Cuddington, in exchange for a Norfolk rectory, and. pulling down the old manor house and parish church, he began a palace. Leland calls it the “nulli que parem"-the matchless or " nonesuch"-but the king dying before it was finished, Queen Mary gave it to the Earl of Arundel, "in free socage, to hold of the honour of Hampton Court;" and the earl, for love of his old master, completed the palace. Queen Elizabeth liked well the spot selected by her father, and often came here when the Earl of Arundel was its owner, and also when it passed to the earl's son-in-law, the Lumley. ("Did ye ever ken that Adam was a Lumley?" King James once said to a proud lord of this family who was boasting of his pedigree.) Eventually she bought the palace, and spent many of her later summers here. There her well-guarded maids of honour rambled and laughed between the close-cut green hedges, and her pretty pages played at the brim of the fountains, and Raleigh and his rivals clattered their rapiers up the flight of eight steps that led through the clock tower to the inner court, and grave men like Burleigh and Walsingham looked from the turret roof over the downland and the woodland, and keepers slew fallow deer under the elms, and many wise and foolish actors fretted their little hour upon the stage and then were seen no more. Here, especially, took place an interview that was the turning point in the fortune of the wrongheaded, rashly-brave Earl of Essex. This, the last of her favourites (Gloriana was only sixtyseven, thin as a herring, painted, and addicted to fuzzy red wigs, stuck with jewels, and ruffs as big as cart wheels), had distinguished himself by tossing his hat on shore at Cadiz, and leading the way to the capture of Spain's strongest fortress, where Raleigh captured and destroyed thirteen men-of-war and immense magazines of provisions and naval stores. The India fleet, with twenty millions of dollars, might have been also captured, but for the jealous opposition to the impetuosity of Essex. Proud Spain had never received such a blow in the teeth before, and threatened a second Armada. Essex-disdainful of all rivals, and always in a pet with the queen, who, provoked at his factious insolence, once struck him in the face at the council table-was sent by Burleigh, the "old fox," who hated him, with great expectations to Ireland, to quell the rebellion of the O'Neil in Ulster. To the queen's alarm and infinite vexation, Essex wasted his time in Munster, and ended by concluding a treaty with Tyrone, tolerating the Catholic religion. On Michaelmas eve, about ten o'clock of the morning, Essex, booted and spurred and splashed with mud, even to his face, threw himself off his horse at the court gate of Nonesuch, made haste up to the privy chamber, and thence to the queen's bedchamber. The queen was newly up but not dressed, and her hair all about her face. The earl knelt unto her, kissed her hands and had private speech, which, says a court letter-writer of that day, "seemed to give him great contentment, for coming from her Majesty, to go shift himself in his chamber, he was very plea sant, and thanked God though he had suffered much trouble and storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home. The courtiers were aghast at the temerity of this coup de main, but all at first seemed halcyon weather with the returned favourite. About eleven the earl, resplendent in satin and jewels, went up again to the queen, and had a gracious interview of an hour and a half. Then slight symptoms of a squall appeared, and after dinner her Majesty seemed much changed for so small a time, and began to question sharply about his precipitate return, and to complain of his leaving suddenly, and all things at hazard. She appointed that very afternoon a council where the lords might hear him. That same night between ten and eleven a commandment came from the queen to my Lord of Essex, that he should keep his chamber, and on the following Monday he was committed to the custody of the keeper at York House, When Sir John Harrington, her godson, went to the queen, she chafed, walked to and fro, and cried, snatching at his girdle, 66 By G, sir, I am no queen! That man is above me. Who gave him command to come here so soon? I did send him on other business. Go home!" "And home I went," says Harrington. "I did not stay to be bidden twice. If all the Irish rebels had been at my heels, I should not have made better speed.' Essex was equally tossed by passion. Raleigh says of him," he uttered strange words, bordering on such strange designs, that made me hasten forth and leave his presence. Thank heaven! I am so far home, and if I go in such trouble again I deserve the gallows for a meddling fool. The queen never knoweth how to humble the haughty spirit, the haughty spirit knoweth not how to yield, and the man's soul seemed tossed to and fro like the waves of a troubled sea." His last letter repulsed, the earl grew desperate, and resolved to seize the queen and win over her councillors. To his house near Temple Bar he invited the leading Puritans, Scotch emissaries, and all disaffected noblemen and captains. In February, 1601, took place his foolish outbreak, and before the same month was over the head of Essex fell from his shoulders in the courtyard of the Tower. What really cost him his head, said Raleigh, was not the departure from Ireland, or the ill-hatched rebellion, but his saying that Elizabeth" was an old woman, as crooked in mind as in body." Perhaps, however, she had never forgotten being seen without her wig-who knows? Nonesuch was given by the parliament to Algernon Sidney and General Lambert; afterwards, during the Plague, the office of the Exchequer was transferred there; and after that Charles the Second gave the palace to the Duchess of Cleveland, who, on the same principle which makes thieves instantly melt stolen plate, pulled it down, sold the materials, and divided the park into farms. There are but few traces of the palace now, only one long deep ditch, always wet in winter, which is called "Diana's Ditch" by the poor people, and is supposed to be the site of a great Diana and Actæon fountain. A sorry ending. In the centre of a ploughed field, in a rejoicing old age, there stands a wonderful elm, twenty-two feet six inches in girth and eighty feet high. It is still full of vigour, and one of the earliest trees in the neighbourhood to bud and bloom. The legend is that it springs from the site of the palace kitchen, but it is really one of those Queen Elizabeth elms" under which, when hunting, she used to stand with her small steel crossbow to kill the deer when driven past her. 66 Cheam, during the great Plague, was selected as the site of a school for citizens' children, which still flourishes, and an old wooden house called "Whitehall" yet exists, where business of the palace used to be transacted. The tower of the old church, a square ugly stump, has a large clamp bracing it together, to restrain a crack which gaped open as long ago as when Archbishop Laud was in prison. Laud had been curate here, and being a superstitious man, who even shuddered at curious spots coming on his nails, he trembled at this omen, lost heart, and soon after lost his head. And now the crow bears away with a slant flight to Banstead Downs, that rolling prairie all in a golden blaze with gorse blossom, and spotted purple with the dry, fragrant network of wild thyme, and here, where the throbbing windmill tosses its broad giant arms, the larks are up by dozens above the clover and the green corn that now, with a grey bloom on every blade, undulates in rippling waves. Miles of blue distance, and the crow sees St. Paul's, no bigger than a chimney ornament in the far distance; Windsor Castle, visible to a keen eye, appears no bigger than a toy castle; and on Penge Hill a little diamond speck, which is the Crystal Palace, is pointed out by the golden finger of an admiring sunbeam. By day the smoke-cloud of the monster city broods on the eastern horizon like a phantom ship, and at night the glare of its million lamps illuminates the sky. loathsome to all women. The Virgin granted his prayer, and when the abbot returned to the rejoicing escort he was black as a negro, and an object of horror, and not of love. The manor of Epsom, seized by Henry the Eighth, was given by him to one of his companions at the tournament, Sir Nicholas Carew, of Beddington, who was soon after executed for treason. Queen Elizabeth gave it to Edward Darcy, a groom of the Privy Chamber, who soon sold it to pay his gambling debts. Now, Muse, arise and sing of Epsom Salts! It was the discovery of this nauseous but efficacious sediment that first made Epsom famous. A donkey, and not a philosopher, first discovered the medical spring in 1618, by wisely refusing to drink its waters. Fuller and Aubrey both mention the pool as aluminous, and with a deposit of snowy flakes. About 1619, certain learned learned ass, analysed the water and pronounced it to be impregnated with "a calcareous nitre," or rather a soluble, bitter, cathartic salt, the practical effects of which were beyond all argument. There is no certainty as to when racing began at Epsom Downs; but most antiquaries believe in the reign of James the First, who loved a good horse and liked to sweep up a stake. Certain it is that in 1648, six hundred Cavalier gentlemen assembled at Epsom Downs under pretence of a horse race, and marched from there to Reigate. Major Audely, with five troops of horse and three of foot, overtook them at Ewell, skirmished with them in Nonesuch Park, and charged and routed them on a hill half-way to Kingston. The Duke of Buckingham-a noble, brave, handsome youth -set his back to an elm tree, and there fought desperately at bay till he was struck down. At Kingston the Cavaliers rallied, and drove back the Puritan cavalry. The Epsom races can only be clearly traced back as far as the year 1780, when the famous Madcap won the prize, and proved the best plate horse in Eng-physicians, following in the footsteps of the land. The races were at first held in the spring and autumn, and being then comparatively local, began at eleven, and were conducted in a quiet leisurely way, the company usually trooping off to the town for a general dinner after the first and second heat, and returning to another tranquil race after their wine. In 1825, sixty thousand persons was thought a grand assemblage at the Derby. The London, Dorking, Worthing, and Chichester coaches brought down the few visitors, but there were no trains to pour their two hundred thousand at once upon the town. The day had not become the carnival it now is: no green boughs, false noses, or oak apples enlivened the noisy, jostling procession. It must have been a sober trotting along of long-coated men in cocked-hats for a mere day's fresh air and pic-nic. Epsom, a place proud of its traditions, has a name of very doubtful derivation. Some etymologists trace it back to Ebbs-ham (the village of the Ebb), from an intermittent spring that here gushes out of the chalk, and at certain periods is drawn back into the earth; others from the Princess Ebba, who was baptised A.D. 660, and gave her hand to one of the earliest of the Saxon kings. The palace of the fair Christian stood where Epsom Court now is. In Doomsday Book, Ebesham stands good for thirty-four villains and six bondmen, two churches, two mills, and a wood that fed twenty swine. The manor belonged to the monastery of Chertsey, about whose Black Abbot there is a legend preserved, not unworthy of the crow's record. A certain gay princess became enamoured of a handsome abbot of the river-side monastery, and, unable to allure the holy man from his vows of celibacy, the wanton lady sent a troop of her maidens to lie in ambuscade for the austere priest, and bring him by gentle force to her castle. The maidens fell upon him and overpowered him. The abbot prayed only for time to repeat his prayers at the altar of a neighbouring chapel; and his captors laughingly granted his request. Prostrating himself before the altar, the abbot prayed to the Virgin to save him by rendering him at once About 1621 the wells were enclosed and a shed erected for patients. The doctors soon began to sing the praises of Epsom. In Charles the Second's time, Shadwell lays the scene of one of his plays at Epsom, and introduces a bubbling projector who proposes to supply London with fresh air in bladders from Banstead Downs. Nell Gwynne, at this time under the protection of Lord Buckhurst, one of her early lovers, lived in a house next the King's Head Hotel, now a shop, some years ago remarkable for its low bay windows and balcony. There Nell, tossing her golden curls, used to sit laughing and bantering, watching the company parading to and fro. She remained always fond of Epsom, and Charles afterwards built her stables near Pitt'splace, close to the parish church. In 1723 a fantastic old writer named Toland, who concocted An Itinerary through England, and who had known Epsom in Queen Anne's time, when dull Prince George of Denmark came there to drink the waters, bequeathed us a curious picture of a fashionable country spa in the old time. It seems to have been then a long, straggling village about a mile in length, open to the cornfields and the fresh breezy down, a church at one end, Lord Guildford's palace (Durdans) at the other, and gardens and trees before every door. The ruddy-faced country people rode round daily with fish, venison, and Banstead Down mutton, fruit and flowers, and bargained with the court and city ladies, who made it their custom of a morning to sit on benches outside their doors. Epsom, at this period, boasted two rival bowling greens, to which "the company" devoted themselves every evening, especially on Mondays, music playing most of the day, and dancing sometimes crowning the night. Indeed this intense coxcomb Toland tells his fair correspondent Eudoxia that "a fairer circle was not to be seen at Carlsbad or Aix-la Chapelle, as at Epsom High Green and Long Room on a public day.' The raffling shops brought together as many sharpers as Tunbridge; and the writer takes care to observe "that it was very diverting for a stander-by to observe the different humours and passions of both sexes, which discover themselves with less art and reserve at play than on any other occasion; the rude, the sullen, the noisy, and the affected, the peevish, the covetous, the litigious and the sharping, the proud, the prodigal, the impatient, and the impertinent, become visible foils to the well-bred, prudent, modest, and good-humoured." At the taverns, inns, and coffee-houses, all distinctions of Whig and Tory were forgotten. After an early dinner, the visitors to the wells rode on the Downs or took coach for the Ring, where, on a Sunday evening, this detestable prig had actually counted as many as sixty vehicles. Saturday, when the husbands of the city ladies came from town, was the great evening for display; and, next to that, Monday, when there was a public ball in the Assembly Rooms. On Sundays, in the forenoon, the ever restless "company "that did not ride the four-mile course past the old warren (still existing) to Carshalton, drove to Boxhill, where they partook of refreshments in arbours out among the trees. Epsom was no doubt a pretty countrified, quaint place when Toland (who must have been a stupendous bore) was there, for nearly all the houses had porticos of clipped elms, lime trees, and an avenue of trees shaded the long terrace that ran from the watchhouse (where the clock tower now stands) as far as the chief tavern, now the Albion Hotel. The citizens and gentlemen took breakfast and supper al fresco under these whispering bowers, and pretty Hogarthian pictures the groups must have formed. "By the conversation of those walking in these avenues," says Toland, " you would fancy yourself to be this minute on the Exchange, and the next at St. James's; one while in an East India factory, and another while with the army in Flanders [how they swore there, Uncle Toby!], or on board the fleet on the ocean; nor is there any profession, trade, or calling, that you can miss of here either for your instruction or your diversion." Indeed, considering the races and packs of hounds, the angling in the Mole, and the rides on the Downs, one can scarcely wonder that, as Toland says, the place was well filled with bankrupts, fortune-hunters, crazed nuated beaux, married coquettes, intriguing prudes, richly dressed waiting-maids, and complimenting footmen. superan By-and-by knavery and quackery invaded the wells. A rascally apothecary, named Levingstone, started a sham new wells, gave concerts and balls, bought and shut up the real spring, and procured testimonials of cures and medical certificates (you can't do that sort of thing now). The cures began to cease, the restless company to grow shy. The poor neglected old spring still exists, and is as full of sulphate of magnesia as ever, but no one cares to be cured by it now. STALLS. while To me a Ir may not have occurred to you, serene reader, to trouble yourself much concerning the Philosophy of Stalls, if, indeed, you have ever thought it worth your to inquire whether there was anything philosophical connected with a stall. To my mind there is, and much. stall typifies, in an intense degree, the qua lity of selfishness. I draw a direct alliance between a stall and celibacy. I hold the Possession of a stall to be linked with the ideas of independence, of isolation from, and superiority to, the rest of mankind. In a stall, properly so termed, you cannot put two people. The stalled ox is alone, and may look with infinite contempt on the poor sheep huddled together in a fold; the cobbler who lived in his stall, which served him for kitchen and parlour and all, was, I will go bail, a bachelor. Robinson Crusoe, for a very long time, occupied a stall, and was monarch of all he surveyed. When Man Friday came, the recluse began to yearn to mingle with the world again. Diogenes in his tub perfectly fulfils the idea of an installed egotist. From his tubstall he could witness at leisure the entire grand opera of Corinth. I have heard of a royal duke-one of the past generation of royal dukes; burly, bluff princes in blue coats and brass buttons, who said everything twice over, drank hard, swore a good deal, and were immensely popular at the Crown and Anchor and the Thatched House Taverns-who, being in Windsor, one Sunday afternoon, thought he would like to attend divine service in St. George's Chapel. Of course he was a Knight of the Garter, and had his stall in the old gothic fane, with his casque and banner above, and a brass plate let in to the oaken carving, recording what a high, mighty, The chapel and puissant prince he was. happened to be very crowded, and as H. R. H. essayed to pass through the throng towards his niche in the choir, a verger whispered him, deferentially, that a distinguished foreign visitor, his Decrepitude the Grand Duke of Pfenningwurst-Schinkenbraten, had been popped into his stall. "Don't care a rush a rush," quoth H. R. H., poking his walking-cane into the spine of a plebeian in front of him. "Want to get to my stall-my stall." |