NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 7 



believe, in the annals of English coaching. We were strangers to each 

 other, which suited my book the better, as I was then sure of seeing him 

 in his every-day costume ; that is to say, in his real character as the 

 driver of a very well-appointed and sufficiently fast coach, on perhaps 

 the most difficult road that is now to be found within the same distance 

 from London. Nor could I have selected a better day for my observance 

 of him ; for having to take up some passengers in two or three very 

 narrow streets, and those full of interruptions from building materials, 1 

 had a good opportunity of judging of his powers of coachmanship, and 

 he certainly afforded me a treat. I found he not only was gifted with 

 that delicacy of finger which is indispensable to perfection in the art, 

 with strength equal to any thing that may be required of him for his 

 box, but that he had all the quickness of the new school with the 

 formerly-indispensable qualification of the old one— I mean, the proper 

 and ready use of his whip ; and which, on such ground as his is, is more 

 essential to safety than the generality of persons are aware of. 



In short, from the scientific way in which he caught his thong upon 

 his crop, it was always ready for either wheelers or leaders, and the 

 rapidity with which he applied it to his leaders when wanting— the near- 

 side ones in particular — I have never seen equalled. But it was on 

 the summit of the first hill we had to descend that the performance of 

 this artist most gratified me, for he showed me that he was one of the 

 few of his fraternity that are sufficiently aware of the attraction of 

 gravitation, — or, in other words, that the weight of his coach would 

 multiply by its velocity — by pulling up his horses nearly to their walk, 

 before he began to descend it. He then handed his coach down it in 

 a masterly manner, without the assistance of the drag, and consequently 



