16 NIMKOD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



But it is time for myself now to take the advice of Horace ; to have an 

 eye to the '* ne quid nimis ;" and not loose too much time on this 

 ground. I cannot, however, help remarking, despite of the regard I 

 have for the fraternity of the whip, that road- coachmen, and old one's 

 in particular, are a good deal given to cram their passengers when they 

 find their swallow is good — althoug-h they sometimes bring it on 

 themselves by asking absurd questions. And yet the art of cramming 

 is not solely practised by coachmen, for men of all trades and grades 

 now and then have recourse to it. No doubt many of your readers will 

 remember my anecdote of Mr. Joliffe's hunstman, the facetious Roffey, 

 cramming " the London gentleman," as he called him, with an account 

 of a run over Surrey, making it appear about three times as good as it had 

 been. On being remonstrated with on this breach of his veracity, he 

 coolly exclaimed—" V^hy I thought I must give the gentleman some- 

 thing to take back with him to London." I have also met with first- 

 rate crammers in the upper walks of life, who, as Shakspeare says, 

 would '* cram words into my ears against the stomach of my sense;" 

 but they are not so common as they w^ere wont to be. I remember 

 Mr. Warde used to finish the description of a country which he once 

 hunted, with saying, it was a good one for hounds, and a well-mounted 

 man might lie with them, but no man could lie with its squires. 



I have read many high-flown descriptions of the " divine pleasures of 

 the tea-table," on a winter's night,— the blazing fire, the warm hearth- 

 rug, the flowing curtains and the hissing urn— not omitting the pretty tea- 

 maker — whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without, and, as 

 the poet says, 



i( . At the doors and windows seem to call, 



As heav'n and earth they -would together fall j" 



