THE DAWN OF COACHING. 183 



touching it, in the same manner as our race-horses go 

 around our posts. It is in allusion to this, that Horace 

 speaks of the ' meta evitata.' In going as near as 

 possible, but avoiding touching these pillars, consisted 

 the excellence of their art of driving; and, as Pindar's 

 Scholiast concludes, (from the epithet applied to the pillar), 

 they turned the corner no less than twelve times- in one 

 heat. Everyone who has ridden race horses, knows the 

 feel (not the pleasantest in the world) of whizzing around 

 a post at full speed, in the midst of eight or ten horses. 

 What nerves must it have required to have stood this 

 hustling amidst a dozen chariots ? The situation of the 

 man who sat as time-keeper on Lord March's carriage, 

 when it went twenty miles in the hour over Newmarket 

 heath, was comfortable, when compared with that of an 

 Olympic coachman. No wonder then that such high 

 honours were paid to the winner, and that both master 

 and horses were crowned, amid the applauses and con- 

 gratulations of the people. The spectacle must have been 

 grand. On the day of the race, the chariots, at a certain 

 signal, entered the course, according to order, settled 

 beforehand ; but whether they drew up for starting in a 

 line, abreast of each other, or promiscuously, as our race 

 horses do, is a point not settled. The interest excited 

 was prodigious, and the very highest honours were paid 

 to him by whose skill and courage the victory was ob- 

 tained. The value put upon the accomplishment of 

 driving is evident, from the amusing instructions of old 

 Nestor to his son ; as also from what Theocritus relates 

 of Hercules, whose father is supposed to have trusted 



