that they are bound to be uncomfortably punctual. They must get in at seven o'clock, though they are all going upon business they do not like or care about, or will have to wait till nine before they can do any thing. Some persons know how to manage this haste, and breakfast and dine in the cracking of a whip. They stick with their fork, they joint, they sliver, they bolt. Legs and wings vanish before them, like a dragon's before a knight-errant. But if one is not a clergyman or a regular jolly fellow, one has no chance this way, To be diffident or polite, is fatal. It is a merit eagerly acknowledged, and as quickly set aside. At last you begin upon a leg, and are called off. A very troublesome degree of science is necessary for being well settled in the coach. We remember travelling in onr youth, upon the north road, with an orthodox elderly gentleman of very venerable peruke, who talked much with a grave looking young man about universities, and won our inexperienced heart with a notion that he was deep in Horace and Virgil. He was much deeper in his wig. Towards evening, as he seemed restless, we asked with much diffidence whether a change even for the worse might not relieve him; for we were riding backwards, and thought that all elderly people disliked that way. He insinuated the very objection; so we recoiled from asking him again. In a minute or two however, he insisted that we were uneasy ourselves, and that he must relieve us for our own sake. We protested as filially as possible against this; but at last, out of mere shame of disputing the point with so benevolent an elder, we changed seats with him. After an interval of bland meditation, we found the evening sun full in our face. His new comfort set him dozing; and every now and then he jerked his wig in our eyes, till we had the pleasure to see him take out a night-cap and look extremely ghastly.The same person, and his serious young companion, tricked us out of a good bed we happened to get at the inn.

The greatest peculiarity attending a Mail-coach arises from its travelling at night. The gradual decline of talk, the incipient snore, the rustling and alteration of legs and nightcaps, the cessation of other noises on the road, the sound of the wind or rain, of the moist circuit of the wheels, and of the time-beating tread of the horses, all dispose the traveller, who cannot sleep, to a double sense of the little that is left him to observe. The coach stops, the door opens; a rush of cold air announces at once the demands and merits of the guard, who is taking his leave, and is anxious to remember us. The door is clapped to again; the sound of every thing outside becomes dim; and voices are heard knocking up the people of the inn, and answered by issuing yawns and excuses. Wooden shoes clog heavily about. The horses' mouths are heard swilling up the water out of tubs. All is still again; and some one in the coach takes a long breath. The driver mounts, and we resume our way. It happens that we can sleep any where except in a mail-coach; so that we hate to see a prudent warm old fellow, who has been eating our fowls and intercepting our toast, put on his night-cap in order to settle himself till morning. We rejoice in the digs that his neighbour's elbow gives him, and hail the long-legged traveller that sits opposite. A passen

ger of our wakeful description must try to content himself with listening to the sounds above-mentioned; or thinking of his friends; or turning verses, as Sir Richard Blackmore did to the rumbling of his coach's wheels;" or chatting with the servant-girl who is going to place (may nobody get her dismissed nine month's hence!); or protecting her against the Methodist in the corner; or if alone with her, and she has a kind face, protecting her against a much more difficult person,-himself. Really, we must say, that enough credit is not given to us lawless persons who say all we think, and would have the world enjoy all it could. There is the author of the Mail-coach Adventure, for instance. With all his amorous verses, his yearnings after the pleasant laws of the Golden Age, and even his very hymns (which, we confess, are a little mystic), we would rather trust a fair traveller to his keeping, than some much graver writers we have heard of. If he forgot himself, he would not think it a part of virtue to forget her. But his ab

solution is not ready at hand, as for graver sinners. The very inten sity of the sense of pleasure will often keep a man from destroying its after-thoughts in another; when harsher systems will forget them. selves, only to confound brutality with repentance.

;

The Stage-coach is a very great and unpretending accommodation. It is a cheap substitute, notwithstanding all its eighteen-penny, and two and sixpenny temptations, for keeping a carriage or a horse; and we really think, in spite of its gossiping, is no mean help to village liberality for its passengers are so mixed, so often varied, so little yet so much together, so compelled to accommodate, so willing to pass a short time pleasantly, and so liable to the criticism of strangers, that it is hard if they do not get a habit of speaking or even thinking more kindly of one another, than if they mingled less often or under other circumstances. The old and infirm are treated with reverence; the ailing sympathized with; the healthy congratulated; the rich not dis tinguished; the poor well-met; the young, with their faces conscious of ride, patronized and allowed to be extra. Even the fiery, nay the fat, learn to bear each other: and if some high-thoughted persons will talk now and then of their great acquaintances, or their preference of a carriage, there is an instinct which tells the rest that they would not make such appeals to their good opinion, if they valued it so little as might be supposed. Stoppings and dust are not pleasant; but the latter may be had on much grander occasions; and if any one is so unlucky as never to keep another stopping himself, he must be content with the superiority of his virtue. The mail or stage.coachman, upon the whole, is no inhuman mass of great coat, gruffness, civility, and old boots. The latter is the politer, from the smaller range of acquaintance, and his necessity for preserving them. His face is red, and his voice rough, by the same process of drink and catarrh. He has a silver watch with a steel-chain, and plenty of loose silver in his pocket mixed with halfpence. He serves the houses he goes by for a clock. He takes a glass at every ale-house; for thirst, when it is dry, and for warmth when it is wet. He likes to shew the judicious reach of his whip, by twigging a dog or a goose on the road, or children that get in the way. His tenderness to descending old la

the

dies is particular. He touches his hat to Mr. Smith. He gives
young woman" a ride; and lends her his box-coat in the rain. His
liberality in imparting his knowledge to any one that has the good
fortune to ride on the box with him, is a happy mixture of deference,
conscious possession, and familiarity. His information chiefly lies in
the occupancy of houses on the road, prize-fighters, Bow-street run-
ners, and accidents. He concludes that you know Dick Sams, or
Old Joey; and proceeds to relate some of the stories that relish his
pot and tobacco in the evening. If any of the four-in-hand gentry go
by, he shakes his head, and thinks they might find something better
to do. His contempt for them is founded on modesty. He tells you that
his off-hand horse is as pretty a goer as ever was, but that Kitty-"Yeah
now there, Kitty-can't you be still-Kitty's a devil, Sir,-for all
you would'nt think it." He knows the boys on the road admire him,
and gives the horses an indifferent lash with his whip as they go by.
If you wish to know what rain and dust can do, you should look at
his old hat.. There is an indescribably placid and paternal look in
the position of his corderoy knees and old top boots on the foot-
board, with their pointed toes, and never-cleaned soles. His beau
ideal of appearance, is a frock coat with mother-o'-pearl buttons, a
striped yellow waistcoat, and a flower in his mouth.

But all our praises why for Charles and Robert ?
Rise, honest Mews, and sing the classic Bobart.

Is the quadrijugal virtue of that learned person still extant? That Olympic and Baccalaureated charioteer? That best-educated and most erudite of coachmen, of whom Dominie Sampson is alone worthy to speak?—That singular punning and driving commentary on the Sunt quos curriculo collegisse,-in short, the worthy and agreeable Mr. Bobart, Bachelor of Arts, who drove the Oxford stage some years ago, capped verses and the front of his hat with equal dexterity, and read Horace over his brandy and water of an evening? We once had the pleasure of being beaten by him in that capital art, he having brought up against us an unusual number of those cross-armed letters, as puzzling to verse-cappers as iron-cats unto cavalry, ycleped X's; which said warfare he was pleased to call to mind in after-times, unto divers of our comrades. The modest and natural greatness with which he used to say Yait to his horses, and then turn round with his rosy gills, and an eye like a fish, and give out the required verse, can never pass away from us, as long as verses or horses ran.

sons

Of the Hackney-coach we cannot make as short work, as many perlike to make of it in reality. Perhaps indeed it is partly a sense. of the contempt it undergoes, which induces us to endeavour to make the best of it. But it has its merits, as we shall shew presently. In the account of its demerits, we have been anticipated by a new, and we are sorry to say a very good poetess, of the name of Lucy Vane L-, who has favoured us with a sight of a manuscript poem, in which they are related with great nicety and sensitiveness.

READER. What, Sir, sorry to say that a lady is a good poetess ? INDICATOR. Only inasmuch, Madam, as the lady gives such authority to the antisocial view of this subject, and will not agree with us

as to the beatitude of the Hackney-coach. But hold-upon turning, to the Manuscript again, we find that the objections are put into the mouth of a Dandy Courtier. This makes a great difference. The Hackney resumes all which it had lost in the good graces of the fair authoress. The only wonder is, how the Courtier could talk so well. Here is the passage.

Eban, untempted by the Pastry-Cooks,

(Of Pastry he got store within the Palace).

With hasty steps, wrapp'd cloak, and solemn looks,
Incognito upon his errand sallies,

His smelling-bottle ready for the allies;

He pass'd the Ilurdy-gurdies with disdain,

Vowing he'd have them sent on board the gallies:
Just as he made his vow, it 'gan to rain,

Therefore he call'd a coach, and bade it drive amain.

"I'll pull the string," said he, and further said,
"Polluted Jarvey! Ah, thou filthy hack!
Whose springs of life are all dried up and dead,
Whose linsey-wolsey lining hangs all slack,
Whose rug is straw, whose wholeness is a crack;
And evermore thy steps go clatter-clitter;
Whose glass once up can never be got back,
Who prov'st, with jolting arguments and bitter,
That 'tis of vile no-use to travel in a litter.

"Thou inconvenience! thou hungry crop
For all corn! thou snail-creeper to and fro,
Who while thou goest ever seem'st to stop,
And fiddle-faddle standest while you go;
I' the morning, freighted with a weight of woe,
Unto some Lazar-house thou journiest,
And in the evening tak'st a double row
Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest,

Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west.

"By thy ungallant bearing and sad mien,

An inch appears the utmost thou couldst budge;
Yet at the slightest nod, or hint, or sign,

Round to the curb-stone patient dost thou trudge,
School'd in a beckon, learned in a nudge;
A dull-eyed Argus watching for a fare;
Quiet and plodding thou dost bear no grudge
To whisking Tilburies, or Phaetons rare,

Curricles, or Mail-coaches, swift beyond compare."

Philosophising thus, he pull'd the check,
And bade the Coachman wheel to such a street,
Who turning much his body, more his neck,
Louted full low, and hoarsely did him greet.

The tact here is so nice, of all the infirmities which are but too likely
to beset our poor old friend, that we should only spoil it to say more.
To
pass then to the merits.

[We are sorry we must break off here for want of room.
0.]

Printed and published by JOSEPH 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.

No. XLVII. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30th, 1820..

· COACHES AND THEIR HORSES.

(CONCLUDED FROM LAST WEEK.)

ONE of the greatest helps to a sense of merit in other things, is a consciousness of one's own wants. Do you despise a Hackney Coach? Get tired; get old; get young again. Lay down your own carriage, or make it less uneasily too easy. Have to stand up half an hour, out a storm, under a gateway. Be ill, and wish to visit a friend who is worse: Fall in love, and want to sit next your mistress. Or if all this will not do, fall in a cellar.

of

Ben Jonson in a fit of indignation at the niggardliness of James the First, exclaimed, "He despises me, I suppose, because I live in an alley tell him, his soul lives in an alley." We think we see a hacky ney-coach moved out of its ordinary patience, and hear it says You there, who sit looking so scornfully at me out of your carriage, you are yourself the thing you take me for. Your understanding is a hackney-coach. It is lumbering, rickety, and at a stand. When it moves, it is drawn by things like itself. It is at once the most stationary and the most servile of common-places. And when a good thing is put into it, it does not know it."

But it is difficult to imagine a hackney-coach under so irritable an aspect. It is Hogarth, we think, who has drawn a set of hats or wigs with countenances of their own. We have noticed the same thing in the faces of houses; and it sometimes gets in one's way in a landscapepainting, with the outlines of the massy trees.A friend tells us, that the hackney-coach has its countenance, with gesticulation besides: and now he has pointed it out, we can easily fancy it. Some of them look chucked under the chin, some nodding, some coming at you sideways. We shall never find it easy however to fancy the irritable aspect above-mentioned. A hackney-coach always appeared to us the most quiescent of moveables. Its horses and it, slumbering on a