3 o DRIVING. 



now reigneth) he and his queen were once like to have beene 

 drowned, the coach overthrowing beside a bridge, and to prove 

 that a coach owed him an vnfortunate tricke, he was some 

 few yeears after his first niche, most unhumanely and trae- 

 trously murdered in one by Rauiliache in the streets at Paris.' 

 To alight after a long journey in a springless coach, battered, 

 aching and shaken, and then to read John Taylor's pamphlet, 

 must have been a distressing day's work. 



It was most probably in consequence of the absence of 

 springs that horse-litters continued in vogue so long. The 

 litter seems to have been introduced by the Normans in the 

 eleventh century, and mention is made of this style of convey- 

 ance at least as late as 1680. The 'litter' was slung on long 

 poles, and borne by two horses, the hind one occasionally 

 having his head almost touching the body of the 'carriage.' 

 One can imagine how this must have shaken. We know how 

 the action of a single horse would shake, in fact, and the 

 jolting of the pair must have been rough indeed. If then a 

 wounded man was sometimes carried in a litter rather than in 

 a coach or carriage of some kind, it can only be presumed that 

 the average carriage was an exceedingly uncomfortable con- 

 veyance. 



The precise date of the invention of springs does not seem 

 to be traceable, and this is unfortunate, for their introduction was 

 of the utmost importance, and indeed revolutionised carriage- 

 building, making what had hitherto been a rough business into 

 an art. The approach to perfection if it has been already 

 reached, indeed was slow. Springs, however, were known 

 of what sort is not clear and employed in 1665 ; for Pepys, 

 in his ' Diary,' writing in that year, speaks of having ridden 

 for curiosity in the carriage thus equipped of one Colonel 

 Edward Blount. The diarist went in the newly fitted coach 

 uphill and over cart ruts, ' and found it pretty well, but not so 

 easy as he pretends.' This is very cool commendation, and 

 seems to imply that there was not so much difference between 

 springless and springed carriages. The days of the luxurious 



