62 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



the Abbey as a dowry, and lived happy ever after. 

 Leaving Lacock behind, the coaches which took this 

 second route from Beckhampton passed through 

 Corsham, Peckwick Box, and Batheaston, where they 

 entered Somersetshire, and so into Bath, making the 

 whole distance from London io6h miles. 



The third route however is the one which I shall follow 

 more closely, not because it is a mile longer than the 

 last (on the map it looks five miles longer at the very 

 least, but this is a geographical optical delusion), but 

 because it was the route of the Bath mail particularly 

 as distinguished from the Bristol, and because it passes 

 through Devizes, where there is or was, a celebrated inn 

 at which two distinguished travellers, in the persons of 

 Miss Burney and Mrs. Thrale, have all this long while 

 been waiting for me. But I have not got there yet. 

 After leaving Beckhampton, and not going to Avebury 

 on the right of the right of the road, which is a re- 

 markable temple after the manner of Stonehenge, 

 which some suppose to have been built in the time of 

 Abraham, whenever that may have been, and some 

 modestly proclaim a Serpent's Temple. 



" Now o'er true Roman way our horses sound," 



as Gay sings ; and three miles and a half or so from 

 Beckhampton the road runs through Wandsditch (per- 

 haps Wans Dyke will be preferred by etymologists), 

 which magnificent earthwork was, according to Dr. 

 Guest, the last frontier of the Belgic province, and can 

 be traced through Wiltshire for nineteen miles. All 

 about here the Bath Road is as exposed as an ancient 

 Briton or Beige could wish it to be ; but for warmer and 

 more modern fancies it is not a good place for a kilt. 

 To tell the truth it blows on these downs confoundedly, 

 and here all coaches which were about in the great snow- 

 storm of 1836 wished they were out of it. Nor does 

 the present appearance of Shepherd's Shore, a lone house 



