TO OXFORD. 183 



may suit a post-boy, or perhaps a Scotch or cross- 

 country coachman ; but it certainly does not apply 

 to those who drive on our great roads. Whoever 

 has travelled, for instance, to Brighton, Ports- 

 mouth, Southampton, Oxford, or Reading, will 

 have met with coachmen whose conversation is 

 frequently as agreeable as their manners are civil 

 and obliging. They join to their civility the tact 

 of never being obtrusive, or forgetful of the situa- 

 tion they occupy. 



We had scarcely cleared the environs of Lon- 

 don, when a passenger who sat beside the coach- 

 man, turned his head round, and I discovered an old 

 acquaintance. After we had cordially greeted each 

 other, he enquired the object of my journey, and 

 on being informed, he insisted that I should dine 

 with him that day in New College, of which he 

 was a fellow. Having thus unexpectedly met with 

 a pleasant companion, we jogged along the road, 

 admiring here and there the views which presented 

 themselves. Indeed, it is impossible to see the 

 neighbourhood of Henley - on - Thames, without 

 being struck with its beauty. The Nettlebed 

 beech-wood, with its silvery stems and its under- 

 wood of holly, puts one in mind of those sylvan 

 scenes which poets delight to describe, and makes 

 the tall maypole, which is seen on emerging from 

 the wood, particularly appropriate. I prefer a 

 beech-wood to any other. Its branches make a 



