1831.] The LtUcr-BelL 283 



not hear the expected knock, what a pang is there! It Is like ^ the 

 silence of death of hope! We think he does it on purpose, and enjoys 

 all the misery of our suspense. I have sometimes walked out to see the 

 Mail-Coach pass, by which I had sent a letter, or to meet it when I 

 expected one. I never see a Mail-Coach, for this reason, but I look at 

 it as the bearer of glad tidings the messenger of fate. I have reason to 

 say so. The finest sight in the metropolis is that of the Mail-Coaches 

 setting off from Piccadilly. The horses paw the ground, and are impa- 

 tient to be gone, as if conscious of the precious burden they convey. 

 There is a peculiar secresy and despatch, significant and full of meaning, 

 in all the proceedings concerning them. Even the outside passengers 

 have an erect and supercilious air, as if proof against the accidents of the 

 journey. In fact, it seems indifferent whether they are to encounter the 

 summer's heat or winter's cold, since they are borne through the air in a 

 winged chariot. The Mail-Carts drive up ; the transfer of packages is 

 made; and, at a signal given, they start off, bearing the irrevocable 

 scrolls that give wings to thought, and that bind or sever hearts for ever. 

 How we hate the Putney and Brentford stages that draw up in a line 

 after they are gone ! Some persons think the sublimest object in nature 

 is a ship launched on the bosom of the ocean : but give me, for my 

 private satisfaction, the Mail-Coaches that pour down Piccadilly of an 

 evening, tear up the pavement, and devour the way before them to the 

 Land's-End ! 



In Cowper's time, Mail-Coaches were hardly set up ; but he has 

 beautifully described the coming in of the Post-Boy : 



f( Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge, 



That with its wearisome but needful length 



Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon 



Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright : 



He comes, the herald of a noisy world, 



With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks ^ 



News from all nations lumbering at his back. 



True to his charge, the close-packed load behind, 



Yet careless what he brings, his one concern 



Is to conduct it to the destined inn ; 



And having dropped the expected bag, pass on- 



He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch ! 



Cold and yet cheerful ; messenger of grief 



Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ;, 



To him indifferent whether grief or joy. 



Houses in ashes and the fall of stocks, 



Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet 



With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks 



Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, 



Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains 



Or nymphs responsive, equally affect 



His horse and him, unconscious of them all." 



And yet, notwithstanding this, and so many other passages that seem like 

 the very marrow of our being, Lord Byron denies that Cowper was a 

 poet ! The Mail-Coach is an improvement on the Post-Boy ; but I fear 

 it will hardly bear so poetical a description. The picturesque and dra- 

 matic do not keep pace with the useful and mechanical. The telegraphs 

 that lately communicated the intelligence of the new revolution to all 

 France within a few hours, are a wonderful contrivance ; but they are 

 less striking and appalling than the beacon-fires (mentioned by JEschy- 

 lus), which, lighted from hill-top to hill-top, announced the taking of 

 Troy and the return of Agamemnon. 



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