ON COACHMEN. 263 



There is another very excellent coachman at work 

 through Basingstoke. His name is Ward, on the Exeter 

 Subscription coach. No man understands heavy work 

 better than Jackman, on the Old Salisbury ; and as he is 

 a great favourite of his master (Mr. Fagg), I wonder he 

 does not persuade him to shove the old coach along one 

 mile an hour faster. His horses are, perhaps, unequalled 

 for size and condition, and would be all the better for 

 having something taken off their time, as it would take 

 some of the flesh off their bones, of which they have 

 quite too much at present. 



My old friend John Probyn, late on Shackell's 

 Reading coach, has left the box nearly three years. Like 

 many others, he began by affecting a character, and 

 finished by adopting it— making a first-rate coachman. 

 It is pretty well known that Probyn is a member of one 

 of the oldest families in the county of Gloucester, and 

 heir to a large estate ; so that his taking professionally 

 to the road was only a lark, and he has now resumed his 

 place in society, having married a lady of excellent 

 family in South Wales. He is a very powerful coach- 

 man ; and upon my asking a brother whip if he did not 

 consider him a very good one, he answered in the 

 affirmative, but added, with a significant shake of the 

 head, ' Look at his cattle ! ' Now the fact is, that with 

 his fast coach, he could not have paid him a greater 

 compliment, for according to the old proverb, ' a bad 

 carpenter never has good tools.' 



In that amusing work ' Geoffrey Crayon's Sketchbook,' 

 is to be found an attempt at the character of an English 



