ASCOT. 



9' 



hurry or distress. This testimony is due to the memory 

 of so eminent a sporting character. 



' Tuesday and Thursday,' says Patroclus, ' were by 

 far the best attended ; indeed the crowd was intense, 

 like the heat ; splendid, genteel, grotesque, many in 

 masquerade, but all in good humour. It is no easy matter 

 to give anyone an idea of the strange monstrosities and 

 strange appearances, which keep you in constant agitation 

 and surprise, upon a fully peopled race-course. My poor 

 friend, unused to such a whirligig scene, was hissing hot 

 with the burning sun and Babel varieties (indeed nothing 

 but cooling drink from the ice-tub — another novelty- 

 brought him to colour and quiet) — dandies of men, 

 dandies of women, lords in white trousers and black 

 whiskers, ladies with small faces and very large hats, 

 Oxford scholars with tandoms and randoms, some on 

 stage-coaches transmogrified into drags, 1 fifteen on the 

 top, and six thin ones within ; a two foot horn, an ice- 

 house, two cases of champagne ; sixteen of cigars ; all 

 neck-cloths 2 but white; all hats but black; small talk 

 without oaths, and broad talk with great ones, cooled 

 with ice and made red hot with brandy and smoke ; all 

 four-in-handers ; all trying to tool 'em ; none able to 

 drive ; but all able to go with the tongue. 



' My Suffolk two-wheeler was placed near a party of 

 this sort ; and had I the pen of an Irving, or the humour 

 of a Mathews, something might be made of the scene ; 



1 Reverse this phrase, and you have, alas ! a description of the stage 

 coach of the present day. 



■ Why should a neckcloth be called a tie ? Who made the noun of the 

 verb to tie, and what's the sense ? 



