CARRIAGE HORSES AND COBS. 183 



The new coach-owner thus describes his first May- 

 day parade: "And so anon we went along through 

 the town, with our new liveries of serge, and the 

 horses' manes and tails tied with red ribbons, and the 

 standards gilt with varnish, and all clean, and green 

 reines, that people did mightily look upon us ; and 

 the truth is I did not see any coach more pretty, 

 though more gay than ours, all the day." But this 

 was not his first appearance in Hyde Park in his own 

 coach. That occurred a few weeks before, and Pepys 

 has described it thus : " Thence to Hyde Park, the 

 first time we were there this year, or ever in our own 

 coach, where, with might}' pride, rode up and down, 

 and many coaches there ; and I thought our horses 

 and coach as pretty as any there, and observed so 

 to be by others." 



Later still, toward the middle of the eighteenth 

 century, began that very great and rapid improve- 

 ment — noted, as we have seen, by Horace Walpole — 

 m highways, vehicles, and horses, Avhich increased 

 the rate of travel from four or five to twelve miles 

 an hour, and culminated with the introduction of 

 railways. 



The carriage horse, it need scarcely be said, became 

 lighter and more active according as the weight that 

 he had to draw, and more especially the friction of 

 the roadways, diminished. Originally he was simply 

 a beast of burden, the first English carriage horse 

 being of the old black cart or shire horse strain, a 

 huge, ungainly animal, with a big head and shaggy 

 fetlocks. Contemporary with the cart horse coachers 

 were the "•running footmen," with their wands of 

 office. The chariots which they attended progressed 



