"N/Mk-on" AND THE Cabriolet. 54 1 



carried the " Irish Church Appropriation Clause," when Sir Robert Peel was defeated, and 

 the clause was buried, not to be dug up again until Mr. Gladstone succeeded to the place 

 of his early mentor, "grave Sir Robert." Macaulay writes in 1S31 : — "Lord John Russell 

 drove me back to town from Holland House in his cabriolet." " Nimrod " about the same time 

 speaks of this new carriage with the greatest contempt, as "only fit for a Frenchman afraid 

 of the wind and the rain." 



It was in a cabriolet that Theodore Hook used to drive home in the morning, after 

 spending the night at Crockford's, when his physician ordered him "not to be out in the 

 night air." Planchd, in his memoirs, relates that Sam Beasley, the architect, "who never 

 had five shillings, but could always find five pounds for a friend," once drove him home 

 from a Greenwich dinner, and on his remarking on the convenience of a private carriage, 

 answered, " Yes, I am rather a curious fellow. I have a carriage and a cabriolet and three 

 horses, and a coachman and a footman and a large house, and three maid-servants, and 

 half-a-crown ! " Thackeray gives an idea of the general effect when, at Bungay's great dinner, 

 he describes the arrival of the Honourable Percy Popjoy : — " As they talked, a magnificent 

 vision of an enormous grey cab-horse appeared, and neared rapidly. A pair of white reins, 

 held by small white gloves, were visible behind a face pale but decorated with a chin 

 tuft, the head of an exiguous groom bobbing over the cab-head. These bright things 

 were revealed to the delighted Mr. Bungay." But luxury has advanced since those days. 

 Mrs. B would not now " disport in a one-horse vehicle ; " she would have her brougham. 



The cabriolet required one horse only, but a horse of great size and beauty, with good 

 legs and feet, and superlative action in his slow paces ; and one groom hanging on behind, so 

 small as to be of little use for any other purpose than display. 



It was a very pleasant bachelor's carriage when perfectly appointed, as well as very 

 imposing ; magnificent for short slow parades, and especially as an easy pedestal for 

 gossip under the shadow ol Achilles Wellington. The grand horse, the miniature groom 

 at his head, the languid, well-gloved, dandy driver, formed a favourite picture with the 

 novelists of the period, from " Pelham," " Coningsby," and " Pendennis," to " Digby Grand." 



THE STANHOPE GIG AND DOG-CART. 



Before the cabriolet came in, the gig, improved from the original " whiskey " shape de- 

 picted by Gilray in "Dr. Syntax's Tour," had made its way to the front against the curricle, 

 and become a carriage in which ladies of fashion condescended to appear in the Park, at 

 Ascot, and Brighthelmstone. Different coachmakers brought out the tilbury, the dennett (in- 

 vented by Bennett, a coachmaker in Finsbury, whose B was changed at the West End 

 to D), and the stanhope shape. This last was invented by Fitzroy Stanhope, a brother 

 of Lord Petersham, afterwards the Earl of Harrington, who married Miss Foote. He had 

 previously invented the tilbury ; and Mr. Tilbury, the coach-builder, insisted that the last 

 should bear the designer's name. Mr. Musters, Byron's successful rival with Miss Chaworth, 

 was driving a lady in a gig in Hyde Park when the quarrel occurred which led to his 

 duel with a colonel, and several other curious passages in the fashionable history of that 

 time, recorded in a punning caricature. Gentlemen have now ceased to fight duels, and 

 ladies of fashion no longer take drives in Hyde Park m gigs or any kind ot two-wheeled 

 vehicle. A writer in the old Sporting Magazine, in 18 17, mentions that, "under the patron- 

 age of the Prince Regent, the gig had in a great measure superseded the curricle and tandem 

 as a fashionable carriage." 



