COACHES. 327 



ladies how gracefully and conveniently she could ride on 

 a side-saddle. Coaches were, I believe, very little 

 known in England till about the year 1580, when, ac- 

 cording to Stow, they were introduced from Germany, 

 by Fitz-Allen, Earl of Arundel. According to Anderson, 

 when the English Ambassador came to Scotland in 

 1598, he had a coach with him: and Anderson places 

 the period when coaches began to get into common use 

 about 1605 ; yet, at the Restoration, Charles the Second 

 rode on horseback between his two brothers. 



Coaches were seen, for the first time, in Spain in the 

 year 1546 ; and towards the end of the sixteenth century, 

 John of Finland, on his return from England, brought with 

 him to Sweden the first coach. Before that period, the 

 Swedish nobility carried their wives with them on horse- 

 back. In Russia, it appears there were elegant coaches 

 in the seventeenth century ; but to what nation we are to 

 ascribe the invention of close carriages or coaches, I am 

 not able to determine. Dr. Johnson informs us it is 

 Hungary. To the man who first placed them upon 

 springs, is the next greatest credit due. 



I have no means of ascertaining when stage coaches 

 first began running in England, but I have read that, in 

 1662, there were but six ; and a pamphlet was written by 

 one John Crossel, of the Charter-house, to suppress them, 

 giving, as a reason, that they brought people to London 

 on trifling occasions, and their wives with them. Hackney 

 coaches were first established in London in 1625, when 

 there were only twenty, and in Paris, where they were 

 better known by the name of fiacres, about twenty-five 



