be old yourself; and now I'm in the mind, I tell you what, Miss Farinonna; and I'll tell you nothing but what all the house says; and that is, I don't know what you mean by these mad pranks, but you are not a bit like your sister, for all you're almost as handsome; and I don't love you half so well as I did, Heaven forgive your mother's old nurse for saying so!" (and she shed tears)" for all I dandled you in these arms; for one of your kindest things (when you do 'em) a'nt the value of any thing that Miss Netta does, she does every thing so sweetly and good-natured. You trample upon us, as a body may say, even when you help us to get up; but kind's kind, I say; and a man may ride from here to Land's End, and be no horseman :yes, no horseman, Miss Nonna; and, I grieve to say it, but you're no horseman." Farinonna, who had a turn for the ludicrous, and who was not naturally bad hearted (who is?), could neither help smiling at nor pitying her old nurse, as she went out of the room lamenting over and over again, that so sweet a creature to look at was no horseman. The honest, involuntary ebullition had an effect on her, which even her sister's sweetness would have failed in, and which certainly no grave advice would have produced. She sat down with a feeling of shame and regret; and after a while exclaimed gently, "I see I must be patient, and learn Farian regularly, or I shall never be like my dear sister." Now the latter, who had been alarmed by old Judith, and just come in, turned her sister's head round affectionately with her two hands, and said, “Ah, my dear Nonna, you will be a greater favourite with the Fairies than I, if you keep in this mind; for I was less strong than you, and was made patient earlier, and you will have had more to conquer." So saying, she kissed the tears out of her eyes. Fariponna took her sister's hand, and kissed it; and looking up, she saw a group of beautiful creatures in the room, who stood like friends about her sister, and smiled upon herself; and one of them said, in the most enchanting manner in the world, "To be able to see us, is to be able to hope every thing." Printed and published by JosnPH APPLEYARD, No. 19, Catherine-street, Strand. Price 2d. And sold also by A. GLIDDON, Importer of Snuffs, No. 31, Tavistockstreet, Covent-garden. Orders received at the above places, and by all Booksellers and Newsmen. THE INDICATOR. There he arriving round about doth flie, SPENSER. No. XLVI.-WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23d, 1820. COACHES. ACCORDING to the opinion commonly entertained respecting an author's want of ready money, it may be allowed us to say that we retain from childhood a considerable notion of "a ride in a coach.” Nor do we hesitate to confess, that by coach, we especially mean a hired one; from the equivocal rank of the post-chaise, down to that despised old cast-away, the hackney. It is true, that the carriage, as it is indifferently called (as if nothing less genteel could carry any one) is a more decided thing than the chaise; it may be swifter even than the mail, leaves the stage at a still greater distance in every respect, and (forgetting what it may come to itself) darts by the poor old lumbering hackney with immeasurable contempt. It rolls with a prouder ease, than any other vehicle. It is full of cushions and comfort; elegantly coloured inside and out; rich, yet neat; light and rapid, yet substantial. The horses seem proud to draw it. The fat and fair-wigged coachman "lends his sounding lash," his arm only in action and that little, his body wellset with its own weight. The footman, in the pride of his non-chalance, holding by the straps behind, and glancing down sideways betwixt his cocked-hat and neck cloth, stands swinging from east to west upon his springy toes. The horses rush along amidst their glancing harness. Spotted dogs leap about them, barking with a princely superfluity of noise. The hammercloth trembles through all its fringe. The paint flashes in the sun. We, contemptuous of every thing less convenient, bow backwards and forwards with a certain indifferent air of gentility, infinitely predominant. Suddenly, with a happy mixture of turbulence and truth, the carriage dashes up by the curb-stone to the very point desired, and stops with a lordly wilfulness of decision. The coachman looks as if nothing had happened. The footman is down in an instant; the knocker reverberates into the farthest corner of the house; doors, both carriage and house, are open; we descend, casting a matter-of-course eye at the bye-standers; and the moment we touch the pavement, the vehicle, as if conscious of what it has carried, and relieved from the weight of our importance, recovers from it's sidelong inclination with a jerk, tossing and panting, as it were, for very breath, like the proud heads of the horses. All this, it must be owned, is very pretty; but it is also gouty and superfluous. It is too convenient,-too exacting,-too exclusive. We must get too much for it, and lose too much by it. Its plenty, as Ovid says, makes us poor. We neither have it in the republic of letters, nor would desire it in any less jacobinical state. Horses, as many as you please, provided men have enough to eat :--hired coaches, a reasonable number:-but health and good-humour at all events. Gigs and curricles are things less objectionable, because they cannot be so relied upon as substitutes for exercise. Our taste in them, we must confess, is not genuine. How shall we own it? We like to be driven, instead of drive ;-to read or look about us, instead of keeping watch on a horse's head. We have no relish even for vehicles of this description, that are not safe. Danger is a good thing for giving a fillip to a man's ideas; but even danger, to us, must come recommended by something useful. We have no ambition to have TANDEM written on our tombstone. The prettiest of these vehicles is undoubtedly the curricle, which isalso the safest. There is something worth looking at in the pair of horses, with that sparkling pole of steel laid across them. It is like a bar of music, comprising their harmonious course. But to us, éven gigs are but a sort of unsuccessful run at gentility. The driver, to all intents and purposes, had better be on the horse. Horseback is the noblest way of being carried in the world. It is cheaper than any other constant mode of riding; it is common to all ranks; and it is manly, graceful, and healthy. The handsomest mixture of danger with dignity, in the shape of a carriage, was the tall phaeton with its yellow wings. We remember looking up to it with respect in our childhood, partly for its own loftiness, partly for its name, and partly perhaps for the figure it makes in the prints to novels of that period. The most gallant figure which mere modern driving ever cut, was in the person of a late Duke of Hamilton; of whom we have read or heard somewhere, that he used to dash round the streets of Rome, with his horses panting, and his hound's barking about his phaeton, to the equal fright and admiration of the Masters of the World, who were accustomed to witness nothing higher than a lumbering old coach or à cardinal on a mule. A post-chaise involves the idea of travelling, which in the company of those we love is home in motion. The smooth running along the road, the fresh air, the variety of scene, the leafy roads, the bursting prospects, the clatter through a town, the gaping gaze of a village, the hearty appetite, the leisure (your chaise waiting only upon your own movements), even the little contradictions to home-comfort and the expedients upon which they set us, all put the animal spirits at work, and throw a novelty over the road of life. If any thing could grind us young again, it would be the wheels of a post-chaise. The only motto. tonous sight is the perpetual up-and-down movement of the postition, who, we wish exceedingly, could take a chair. His occasional retreat to the bar which occupies the place of a box, amd his affecting to sit. upon it, only reminds us of its exquisite want of accommodation. But some have given the bar, lately, a surreptitious squeeze in the middle; and flattened it a little into something obliquely resembling an inconvenient seat. If we are to believe the merry Columbus of Down-Hall, calashes, now almost obsolete for any purpose, used to be hired for travelling occasions a hundred years back; but he preferred a chariot; and neither was good. But see how pleasantly good-humour rides over its inconveniences. Then answered 'Squire Morley, "Pray get a calash, But Matthew thought better; for Matthew thought right, That extremes both of winter and summer might pass; "Draw up," quoth friend Matthew ; “ Pull down," quoth friend John, Thus, talking and scolding, they forward did speed; And Ralpho paced by under Newman the Swede. Into an old inn did this equipage roll, At a town they call Hodson, the sign of the Bull; "Come here, my sweet landlady, pray how d'ye do ? And where is your sister, so mild and so dear, Why now let me die, Sir, or live upon trust, If I know to which question to answer you first: Why things, since I saw you, most strangely have varied, : This quotation reminds us of a little poem by the same author, entitled the Secretary, which as it is short, and runs upon chaise-wheels, and seems to have slipped the notice it deserves, we will do ourselves the pleasure of extracting also. It was written when he was Secretary of Embassy at the Hague, where he seems to have edified the Dutch with his insisting upon enjoying himself. The astonishment with which the good Hollander and his wife look up to him as he rides, and the touch of yawning dialect at the end, are extremely pleasant. oddih While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix, When the Hague and the present are both on my side? To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say ? When good Vandergoes, and his provident vrow, As they gaze on my triumph, do freely allow, That, search all the province, you'll find no man dàr is If Prior had been living now, he would have found the want of travelling accommodation flourishing most in a country, for whose graver wants we have to answer, without having her wit to help us. There is a story told of an Irish post-chaise, the occupier of which, without quitting it, had to take to his heels. It was going down hill, as fast as wind and the impossibility of stopping could make it, when the foot passengers observed a couple of legs underneath, emulating, with all their might, the rapidity of the wheels. The bottom had come out ; and the gentleman was obliged to run for his life. We must relate another anecdote of an Irish post-chaise, merely to shew the natural tendencies of the people to be lawless in self-defence. A friend of ours, who was travelling among them, used to have this proposition put to him by the postillion, whenever he approached a turnpike. Plase your honour, will I drive at the pike?" The pike hung loosely across the road. Luckily, the rider happened to be of as lawless a turn for justice as the driver, so the answer was always a cordial one;" Oh yes-drive at the pike." The pike made way accordingly; and in a minute or two, the gate people were heard and seen, screaming in vain after the illegal charioteers. The driver's borne beyond their swearing, As to following them, nobody in Ireland thinks of moving too much, legal or illegal. The pleasure to be had in a Mail-coach is not so much at one's command as that in a post-chaise. There is generally too little room in it, and too much hurry out of it. The company must not lounge over their breakfast, even if they are all agreed. It is an understood thing, |