1B26.] A JVi/ke/iamite's Revenge against Adams's Antiquities. 143 



" Abie's Sociable (clone over) with glue, or (I should rather be in- 

 clined by the context to say) varnish." Abie was probably an eminent 

 Roman coachmaker, the leader of his tribe. Seneca, an author whose 

 strict morality would surely have hindered him from making any asser- 

 tion without sufficient proof, in speaking of the great powers and attri- 

 butes of man, expressly says : — 



" Natura nos sociabiles facit." 

 " Nature makes us sociab/es." 



Now, though nature in this degenerate age is far from being thus 

 bountiful ; and though sociables, instead of being spontaneously pro- 

 duced, are to be acquired only by paying large sums ; yet, that among 

 the Romans such things daily occurred is surely no difficult pill for 

 those antiquarians to swallow, who have already acquiesced in more 

 incredible tales. When we thus learn the extraordinary abundance of 

 Sociables in ancient times, we cannot help regretting that the Whip Club 

 was not instituted in the golden age. Had Providence accelerated the 

 birth of this great body-corporate by a few thousands of years, its vital 

 warmth would never have been cliilled by the cold selfishness of trades- 

 men, invariably wishing their accounts to be settled. 



Horace's allusion to the curricle : — 



" Sunt quos curricula pulvcreni Olynipicum Collegisse juvat." 

 " There are some who like to kick up a dust in a curricle" 

 is too well known to require any further remark. 



We now come to the Tandem : in support of which we have, in one of 

 Cicero's orations, a passage long misunderstood, but easily explained by 

 the circumstances under which it was written. 



Orat : 1 " Coecina utrum noluit tandem, an non 

 pro Coec. J " potuit accedere?" 

 It would seem that the Ccecina here mentioned was one of those 

 characters common to every age, who had rather seem averse to an 

 expensive enjoyment, than own their inability to support its expense. 

 He had been accustomed in his prosperity to drive about the Campus 

 Martins in a dashing tandem, which, upon the ruin of his fortunes, he 

 contracted into a gig (lowering the springs and selling the leader, as 

 appears from the concordant testimony of several authors). He then 

 went about everywhere haranguing on the extreme danger of tandems, 

 and on the innumerable accidents which he saw in the daily papers. 

 Our orator, who knew well all the springs of the human heart, in that 

 rich vein of ridicule so peculiarly his own, challenges him thus directly 

 and openly : 



" Coecina utruin noluit tandem, an non potuit accedere?" 

 " Had Coecina any real objection to a tandem, or was he unable to ^o it ?" 

 Lastly, we find the humble Sulki/ mentioned by no less a person than 

 Virgil : 



iEneid, ? " turn longo limite Sulcus 



Lib. ii, 1. 697. S " dat lucem." 



" Then in a long track the SulJci/ gives light." 

 It appears from this, that the sulkies of that period had lamps, from 

 which they, like every thing modern, have since degenerated. 



