Hyde Park Corner. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



DRIVING CLUBS, OLD AND NEW. 



THE date at which amateurs first began to drive four-in-hand 

 is shrouded in obscurity Before a regular system of stage-coach- 

 ing was established, the squire of the period may have added a 

 leader or leaders to his travelling carriage, to help him over the 

 rough roads ; and so necessity may have laid the first stone of 

 what subsequently grew to be a great institution. It is pro- 

 bable, too, that, when stage-coaches were first started, gentlemen 

 were found to be ambitious of driving, regardless of the dis- 

 comforts of springless coach-boxes for the springs under the 

 box coachmen were indebted to John Warde, ' the father of fox- 

 hunting ' ruts three feet deep, and, probably, very indifferent 

 horses. This, however, is surmise ; yet there may have been 

 amateur talent at least in the time of Oliver Cromwell, who, it 

 appears, was himself something of a coachman. As, however, 

 he is one of the earliest amateurs of whose doings on the box 

 we have any record, we may make mention of him, especially 



