i8o ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



NIMROD'S ESSAYS. 



THE DAWN OF COACHING. 



Parva sunt hasc, sed parva ista non contemnenda— Majores nostri, maxi- 

 mam hanc rem fecerunt. 



The first inventors of things are but clumsily handed 

 down to us by the ancients, although Virgil assigns a 

 place in heaven to those who are clever in that way. 

 The art of driving is of very early date, and has most 

 honourable mention made of it. Horace immortalises 

 a good coachman — 'evcJiit ad Deos' \ and Cicero gravely 

 asserts that Minerva was the first to drive four-in-hand. 

 To gain a race by coachmanship, he tells us, was next 

 to a triumph, at Rome ; and in Sparta it gave a man 

 an honourable post in the army. Homer employs 

 Hector and Nestor as coachmen ; and Virgil tells us 

 that when ^Eneas took Pandarus into his chariot to go 

 against Diomed, he compliments him with the choice 

 either to fight or to drive — thereby implying that the 

 latter was a post of equal honour with the former. 

 Pandarus however, like a good judge, declines ' having 

 them ' (as we should say), lest the high mettled steeds, 

 unused to his finger, might become unruly, and get them 



