CHAPTER XV TWO FOREIGNERS ON 



COACHING 



TWO good accounts of stage-coach travelling 

 — one for and the other against — were written 

 by foreigners, who regarded English customs 

 with interested and critical eyes. Both, being 

 possessed of fluent pens, wrote vivid accounts of their 

 journeys and their associates by the way. The men were 

 Charles Moritz, a Prussian clergyman who visited 

 England in 1782, and considered coaching abhorrent; 

 and Washington Irving, an American, who came over 

 in 1 815, and saw in the stage-coach a joyous and delightful 

 thing. 



Moritz was the forerunner of the modern tourist, 

 for he came to England on a brief visit, determined 

 to probe our national charafter to the depths. He noted 

 down everything that struck him as new or unusual, 

 for the edification of his Prussian friends. Though his 

 feelings on the subjeft speedily changed, he was at first 

 diisposed to regard the stage-coaches rather favourably. 



"Yesterday afternoon I had the luxury, for the first 

 time, of being driven in an English stage. These coaches 

 are, at least in the eyes of a foreigner, quite elegant, 

 lined in the inside; and with two seats large enough 

 to accommodate six persons; but it must be owned, 

 when the carriage is full, the company are rather 

 crowded. 



"At the White Hart from whence the coach sets 



out, there was, at first, only an elderly lady who got 



in, but as_^we drove along, it was soon filled, and mostly 



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