THE AMATEURS i8i 



He did presume to rule because forsooth 



He'd been a Horse Commander from his youth; 



But he must know there's difference in the reins 



Of horses fed with oats, and fed with grains. 



I wonder at his frolic, for to be sure 



Four pampered coach horses can fling a brewer;^ 



But pride will have a fall, such the world's course is 



He that can rule three realms, can't guide four horses. 



See him that trampled thousands in their gore. 



Dismounted by a party led of four. 



But we have done with't, and we may him call 



This driving Jehu, Phaeton his fall; 



I would to God for these three kingdom's sake 



His neck and not the whip had given the crack." 



Cromwell's upset seems to have checked coaching 

 enthusiasm, for it is not till the close of the eighteenth 

 century that amateur coaching became fashionable. 

 Mr. John Warde, the Kentish squire of fox hunting 

 fame, rediscovered the sport of the four-in-hand, when, 

 for the sheer delight of the thing, he often took the place 

 of the professional coachmen on the Gloucester old 

 stage or the Birmingham Prince of Wales. It was owing 

 to his persistent representation of the discomforts of 

 the box-seat that Telegraph springs were first added, 

 and the way of the "Amateurs" made easy in more ways 

 than one. 



Once introduced as a sport, coaching became all the 

 rage, and to drive a four-in-hand was considered 

 essential for a man of fashion. To attain proficiency in 



^ Cromwell was popularly but erroneously supposed to have 

 started life as a brewer. 



