THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



ber of this club. His name was Price. His scene of action 

 was on the Great Western Road, on which he worked, as an 

 amateur, nearly as regularly as any coachman upon it. But 

 it is for this evening's exploits that his fame is recorded liere. 

 After tive bottles of hock, which he could put under his waist- 

 coat, at a sitting, without being much affected by them, he 

 would till a bumper, and, placing the glass to stand on his head, 

 he would sing a song, in which the names of every coachman 

 and liorse-keeper employed on a certain coach from London 

 to Plymouth, were introduced. Nor was this all, he would, at 

 the same time, go through the manoeuvres of hitting wheelers 

 and leaders, without spilling a drop of his wine ; and after he 

 had drunk it off, he would run the empty glass up and down 

 the large silver buttons of his coat, with very singular eflect. 

 Then the following anecdote speaks to the prevalence of his 

 ruling passion for the coach-box. At the time to which we 

 have been alluding, the French revolution was raging in all its 

 horrors. The subject being discussed in his presence, he took 

 a letter from his pocket, and thus addressed those who were 

 present : — ' What's the French revolution to me ? Here is Bill 

 Simmons, the first man that ever drove the Exeter mail out of 

 Exeter, turned over to the heavy coach, and against his will. 

 Now, that is what I call a revolution ! ' 



There was another club formed at this time, of which it may 

 be imagined our hero was anxious to become a member, and 

 the character he had acquired in society at once secured him 

 his election ; for, as Johnson said to Burke, who recommended 

 a candidate for the Literary Club as a man of rjentle manners 

 — 'no more need be said.' The one now alluded to was 

 generally called either the ' Whip Club,' or the ' Four-in-hand 

 Club,' but its real title was the ' Four-horse Club.' Their 

 first meeting was held in April 1808; and they assembled, 

 afterwards, every first and third Thursday in May, and the 

 same in June, at the house of their president, in Cavendish 

 Square, whence they drove in procession to 8alt Hill, on the 

 Bath road, where they dined, alternately, at the two capital 



inns for which that delightful village has been so celebrated 



one of them, indeed, especially so, as having been the scene of 

 the destruction of thirteen persons in one day, from eatino- 

 mock turtle soup, which had been left to stand a night in 

 a copper vessel not properly tinned. Two guineas a head was 



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