THE ROAD. 
see it do again. Yet, taken in moderation, we can 
perceive no reason to condemn this branch of sport more 
than others. If so great a personage as Sophocles could 
think it fitting to display his science in public, in the 
trifling game of ball, why may not an English gentleman 
exercise his skill on a coach-box ? If the Athenians, the 
most polished nation of ah 1 antiquity, deemed it an honour 
to be considered skilful charioteers, why should English- 
men consider it a disgrace ? To be serious our amateur 
or gentlemen-coachmen have done much good : the road 
would never have been what it now is, but for the 
encouragement they gave, by their notice and support, 
to all persons connected with it. Would the Holyhead 
road have been what it is, had there been no such persons 
as the Hon. Thomas Kenyon, Sir Henry Parnell, and 
Mr. Maddox ? Would the Oxford coachmen have set so 
good an example as they have done to their brethren of 
" the bench," had there been no such men on their road 
as Sir Henry Peyton, Lord Clonmell, the late Sir Thomas 
Mostyn, that Nestor of coachmen, Mr. Annesley, and 
the late Mr. Harrison of Shelswell ?* Would not the 
* "Mr. Charles Holmes and the Blenheim Coach. Nimrod, in his 
Northern Tour last month, got upon his favourite subject, the road ; and we 
were glad to see it, because we think occasional notices of the different 
coachmen, and the turns-out from the various establishments, are calculated 
to afford an additional stimulus to all persons of the same class, and also to 
promote the public sendee in the coaching department. We have much 
pleasure, therefore, in recording a very handsome and flattering compliment 
that has been recently paid to Mr. Charles Holmes, the driver and part 
proprietor of the Blenheim coach (from Woodstock to London), to celebrate 
the completion of his twentieth year on that well-appointed coach, a period 
108 
