io NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 



papers, which it is probable they may do, as the gentlemen con- 

 nected with them often, no doubt, trust their persons to coaches, 

 and a clever editor, Whig or Tory, is a public loss. But life is 

 like honour, which Virgil says is nowhere safe. 



I have not much to say of my short visit to London, which 

 appears to get bigger and bigger every time I see it. In fact we 

 may almost say of it, what Aristotle said of Babylon, that it 

 might rather be called a country than a city. One circumstance, 

 however, attended my entrance into it which I am quite certain 

 never occurred before, and I may venture to predict will never 

 occur again. It was the first of November properly considered 

 the first day of winter and the water-carts were at work, not 

 only in the streets, but on the roads ! 



I had the choice of two coaches to take me to the north, but 

 fixed on the Wellington, because I like the name ; it is borne by 

 a man who has not only done honour to his country in the field, 

 but who is its best friend in the senate, as after-times will show. 

 At half-past three o'clock then, I started on the box of this said 

 Wellington coach, from the Bull and Mouth Hotel, when I 

 found I was by the side of a coachman I knew very well by 

 sight ; but as I never travelled by his coach,* he had lost all 

 recollection of me. This was " Old Penny," as he is called not 

 much of a misnomer, by-the-by one of the few to be seen on 

 rather a swell drag out of London, of the low-crown'd, broad- 

 brimm'd, shawl-neckerchief d, larg'e-pocketted, silver-button'd, 

 box-coated, knee-capp'd, old-fashioned coachmen, " with an hue 

 as florid as vermilion'd Jove ;" who can no more help thrusting 

 both their hands into their coat pockets at the change, " and just 

 stepping into the house to say a word to missis/' than they could 

 go two months without their dinners. But this just stepping in 

 and stepping out every change between London and Huntingdon, 

 where Penny stops, may be " Penny-wise/' but the proprietors 

 must find it " pound-foolish," for time must be lost by it or made 

 up at the expense of the stock. Old habits, however, are difficult 

 to break through, and my old acquaintance has always been 

 accustomed to heavy work. He is, however, a good man with 

 heavy horses, shoving them along, when he is going fast enough 

 for anything, and is, I believe, an old and favoured servant of 

 the Bull and Mouth yard, 



A pleasant companion is said to shorten the road, and as I 

 was booked to Newcastle, nothing could have been more desir- 

 able on so long a journey. In fact, when I get upon a coach, I 



* The Exeter 'Subscription Coach from the Bull and 'Mouth; and 

 here let me remark that all the Bull and Mouth coaches have their 

 wheels secured by screws. 



