220 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



of short stages, and the four-horse men on the pah'- 

 horse men. Dickens with capital humour illustrates 

 this by the mouth of the elder Weller to Sam, who 

 in writing his love-letter had ventured on a rhyme ; upon 

 which the elder Weller remarked : " It was wery wulgar 

 to write Potry — he never knowed a coachman write 

 Potry, except vun as wrote a most affecting copy o' 

 werses the night afore he vos hung ; but then he vos 

 only a Camberzuell man — so that says nothing" — the 

 Camberwell stages being pair-horse coaches only. 



When I was a boy the inhabitants of a country district 

 niade the inns where the mails and stage-coaches which 

 served their locality arrived and started from in London 

 their halting-places : tlius, the Old Bell Inn, Holborn, 

 was the resort of the residents in Bucks and the 

 adjoining counties ; the King's Arms, Snow Hill, for 

 Warwickshire and Northamptonshire ; the Spread 

 Eagle, Gracechurch Street, and the Swan with Two 

 Necks accommodated the dwellers in Essex, and other 

 districts had each their favourite house. The Old Bell 

 remains as it was more than fifty years ago, and all who 

 have a desire to see an old London inn should visit the 

 house before it is swept away to make room for the 

 modern improvements which are everywhere changing 

 the aspect of Old London ; the Bull, nearly adjoining it, 

 is of the same character, and still awaits the inevitable 

 change. The coffee-room at the Old Bell was carpetless ; 

 it had boxes, as they were called, or divisions, each 

 provided with a small table and fixed seats, some 

 holding eight, some six, and some with accommodation 

 only for one or two persons. The cooking, though plain, 



