2S6 AXXALS OF THE ROAD. 



I cannot speak to their performance as coachmen. I 

 have heard that Mr. Atkinson could drive four horses 

 well. Mr. Osbaldeston's yellow coach — the original 

 ' Canary ' — we all must remember ; as also the late Sir 

 Charles Bamfylde and his roans ; but Sir Charles's pace 

 was much too slow for these times. 



The pace, however, of gentlemen, as of all road work, 

 has greatly increased since the period I have been speak- 

 ing of, and a still greater change has taken place in the 

 kind of horse. The coach horse of the present day, for 

 anything but a six-inside coach, is a well-bred, thick 

 horse, of moderate size, who, though he may not make 

 so grand an appearance, when standing still, as those of 

 loftier figure, yet can run his ground from end to end 

 without a slack trace, and beat the big ones into fits. 



Although I have been completely at a loss to recon- 

 cile the unbounded honours bestowed by the ancients 

 upon those who could turn a corner neatly in their 

 chariots at the Olympic games (and, with the exception of 

 the nerve J required to force their way through the 

 crowd, in this did their chief merit consist), yet I am 

 quite convinced that great benefit arises to the com- 

 munity from associations such as those I have been de- 

 scribing. Leaving out of question the previous advan- 

 tages that I have recorded, relating to roads and travel- 

 lers, which have clearly sprung from this source, the 

 good to trade is a great consideration. The common 

 expenses of a gentleman's driving establishment are 



1 According to Pindar forty chariots have been broken in one race, and 

 Sophocles calls it ' a shipwreck by land.' 



