34 DRIVING. 



About this period, however, there appeared a novelty in the 

 streets, which is said to have 'set all London in an agitation.' 1 

 The astonishment of London is readily comprehensible, for 

 the 'high-flier phaeton/ as the vehicle which created the sensa- 

 tion is called, is certainly a most remarkable affair. The high- 

 flier was a four-wheeled vehicle, and the fore wheels must have 

 been nearly five feet high, if we may assume that the horses 

 which drew the carriage were a little over fifteen hands but 

 the artist may not be very accurate ; for on this calculation the 

 driver, and the lady in the protruding bonnet who accompanies 

 him, would be very tall persons the hind wheels were at least 

 eight feet in diameter, and the floor or shell of the carriage 

 was considerably above this, so that the driver's feet were far 

 higher than the ears of his horses. The body of the carriage, 

 if body be the right word for what is in fact only a floor with 

 a seat, was supported on curved iron standards, or springs. 

 Access was obtained, not by a balloon as might have been 

 supposed, but by a ladder. Once enthroned, the driver was so 

 far from his work, that he can have had no control whatever over 

 the leaders. The high-flier was drawn by a team of four horses, 

 and it is quite certain that the very long whip which he is 

 represented as carrying would not have enabled him to touch 

 the leaders. If the reader can imagine an extraordinarily long- 

 bodied coach, driven by someone perched on the back seat, 

 some idea of the guidance of the high-flier will be obtained. As 

 for the comforts of the carriage, Mr. Adams, himself a coach- 

 builder, says, ' To sit on such a seat when the horses were going 

 at much speed would require as much skill as is evinced by a 

 rope-dancer at a theatre. None but an extremely robust con- 

 stitution could stand the violent jolting of such a vehicle over 

 the stones of a paved road ; ' and it must have been so. 



We have described the high-flier for the reason that it 



1 The account of this carriage is taken from a book called The World 

 on Wheels, by the late Mr. Ezra Stratton, of New York, to which the author 

 of this chapter desires to express acknowledgment. The original model of 

 Sir William Chambers, still in good preservation, is in possession of a coach- 

 maker at Bath. 



