s then customary to commence the races at eleven o'clock in
the forenoon, and after the first or second heat, the company usually
returned into the town to dinner. In the afternoon they again assembled
on the downs, and the races for the day were then finished.

"This arrangement has been long discontinued, and the races are now
annually held on the downs, adjoining the town, on the Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday immediately preceding Whitsuntide, except when
Easter Monday happens in March; in which case the races are held a
fortnight later than usual, in pursuance of certain regulations agreed
upon for holding the principal races in the kingdom.

"This has been the practice here since the celebrated Derby and Oaks
Stakes were first established at Epsom, the former in 1780, and the
latter in 1779.[8]

[8] A second meeting is held in the autumn.

"Several members of the royal family, and most of the nobility attend
these races; and, if the weather be fine, there are seldom less than
60,000 persons assembled here on the Thursday, when the Derby stakes are
contested. Of these the vicious and unprincipled form a tolerable
proportion; nor is it indeed surprising, where 60,000 persons are
assembled to witness a horse race, that these should obtrude themselves,
either with the view of propagating vice, or robbing the bystanders."

We ought to add that the volume is by an inhabitant of Epsom, and the
profits of its sale have been given to the Subscription School in the
town. It is so inaccurately printed, as to make us hope that more
attention will be paid to the typography of the next edition; for
assuredly so interesting a volume, published with so laudable an object
as that of aiding the cause of charity, should extend to more than one
edition.

By the way, there is a nice little anecdote connected with the sign of
the _Queen's Head_ at Epsom,[9] which the editor of this volume would do
well to insert in his next impression. The above sign, (the _original_;
for we fear the board has been repainted,) was executed by Harlow, the
artist of the celebrated picture of the _Trial of Queen Katherine_, or
the _Kemble Family_. The painter, it will be remembered, was a pupil of
the late Sir Thomas Lawrence. He was a young man of consummate vanity,
and having unwarrantably claimed the merit of painting the Newfoundland
dog introduced in Lawrence's portrait of Mrs. Angerstein, the two
artists quarrelled, and Harlow took his re