140 ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



An emblem of Hell are your factory stations, 



Exciting our pity, or vile execrations. 



Where are your lines that can boast of their bounties ? 



Can Northern ? or Western ? can poor ' Eastern Counties ' ? 



O rulers ! people ! why are you cajoled ? 



They'll upset old England, which has long been foretold. 



The foreboding about our coaches being" seen as 

 'antiques' was very nearly fulfilled in 1873 or 1874, when 

 the want of space alone prevented the Duke of Beaufort 

 from exhibiting in the Kensington Exhibition, an old Ben- 

 jamin Worthy Home's mail in his possession, which used 

 to run on the Holyhead road. But still, to soothe the 

 lamentations of the ' Knights of the Whip,' we can say — 



Let steam do her worst, there are swells on the road, 

 Whose slap-up four-in-hands she can never explode. 



And is it not better to travel by a coach at the rate of 

 ten miles an hour, with a certainty of accomplishing your 

 journey by a given time, than to travel by any mode which 

 holds out an uncertain prospect at treble the speed ? 



'New modes of travelling,' as De Ouincey says, when 

 speaking of the English mail-coaches, 'cannot compare 

 with the old mail-coach system in grandeur and power.' 



The art of driving and all things in connection with 

 the road had reached perfection — and it is for this reason 

 that we always refer to this period for instructions and 

 information teaching us how to blend the utile with the 

 dulce — when it received its death-blow by the general 

 introduction of railroads. Still coaching did not surrender; 

 and we see now, in the increase year by year of the number 

 of sta^e-coaches and of coach and road clubs, a growingf 



