i8o DRIVING. 



Basingstoke at three, doing fifty-two miles in five hours and a 

 half ; but there was much road-work to be done, picking up a 

 great many 'short passengers.' We also stopped ten minutes at 

 Virginia Water for refreshments, and generally more than ten 

 minutes at Odiham, where the proprietor of the coach lived, 

 and he always had a very nice luncheon laid ready on the 

 table. It was my invariable practice to keep time to a minute. 

 We had roan horses nearly all the way, and it was, of course, 

 not always easy to supply deficiencies. One day, after chang- 

 ing horses at Hartley Row, on nearing Odiham the coachman 

 said to me : ' Do you find any difference between this team and 

 the others you generally have ? ' I replied that I thought that 

 they rather wandered about the road just at starting. 'Well,' 

 he said, ' I did not like to tell you before, but they have not 

 an eye among them.' On reaching Basingstoke I remained 

 till five, when I got on to the Weymouth 'Magnet,' and arrived 

 in London at nine, nearly a hundred miles. There were many 

 amateurs on this road Sir John Rogers, Sir Lawrence Palk, 

 Sir Walter Carew, Lord Willoughby de Broke, Mr. Wadham 

 Wyndham, and many others. 



There was much life on the road in those days, as those 

 who could not afford post-horses went by coach ; occasionally 

 four ladies would engage the inside from Exeter to London. 

 One night the guard said to me, ' Be sure not to turn her over 

 to-night, as we have four members inside,' and I found that 

 these were four members of Parliament. The day after the 

 Coronation, I was just leaving the White Horse Cellar, with a 

 very heavy load on the Basingstoke coach, when a clergyman 

 came running up, and asked if I had any room. I replied that 

 I was very sorry, but that the coach was more than full already. 

 He exclaimed, ' I really must go, or I shall be in a sad scrape ; 

 cannot you make room for me somewhere ? I am ready to jump 

 into the boot or anywhere, sooner than be left behind.' ' Well,' 

 I said, ' both boots are full I know, but sooner than you should 

 get into trouble we will try what we can do.' So I told one of 

 the porters to take a large trunk out of the front boot and pile 



