164 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



sheltered the gloomy life of the hero of Arcot and 

 Plassy. Lord Clive lived at Claremont during many 

 of the latter years of his life in the present house, 

 which he built on the site of Vanbrugh's palace. But 

 the Trajan of England, according to Macaulay, was more 

 feared than admired by the simple inhabitants of Esher. 



" The peasantry of Surrey," he writes in his Essay 

 on Clive, " looked with mysterious horror on the stately 

 house which was rising at Claremont, and whispered 

 that the great wicked lord had ordered the walls to 

 be made so thick in order to keep out the devil, who 

 would one day carry him away bodily." This is what 

 comes of being a warrior of the rank of Lucullus, and 

 a reformer of the rank of Turgot.and Lord William 

 Bentinck — but I must get on to Guildford. 



Not however before noticing the enormous pair of 

 jack boots (on view in the entrance hall of the Bear, 

 and redolent with memories of miry roads, ruts a yard 

 deep, coaches hopelessly stuck in morasses, and other 

 picturesque incidents of the travelled past), which boots 

 are said to have been worn by the fortunate postillion 

 who went with the pair of fortunate horses which drew 

 the unfortunate Louis Philippe's carriage when Clare- 

 mont sheltered the royal exile. I can only remark in 

 leaving these boots that they are " very fine and large," 

 and are obligingly shown to all visitors at the Bear by 

 the obliging landlord ; and so pass onto Cobham, three 

 miles four furlongs down the road, on the heath, sur- 

 rounding which place, had we been travellers to Ports- 

 mouth in the year of grace 1668, we should have found 

 Mr. and Mrs. Pepys aimlessly wandering, having lost 

 their way " for three or four miles." Travelling at a 

 later date however we should not, I take it, have seen 

 much at Cobham, except the White Lion, a fine old relic 

 of old coaching days — out of the rush of life now, but 

 alive still ; where, having taken a glass of rum and milk, 

 we should pass on to Ripley, three miles seven furlongs 

 on, noted for its cricketers, its green on which they play 



