DRIVING CLUBS, OLD AND NEW. 255 



daring that the key-bugle should be substituted for the straight 

 horn, that the coats should be of Yorkshire drab, and the 

 waistcoats of 'white silk shag.' Arrangements, however, fell 

 through, and the club never existed. 



For several years both the B.D.C. and F.H.C. flourished 

 in friendly rivalry ; members turned out in their full strength, 

 and the coachmen were, from all accounts, the very embodi- 

 ment of good-fellowship. About 1815, however, the Four- 

 Horse Club began to wane, and in 1820 its dissolution came. 

 ' I hear you men have broken up,' was the remark made by 

 a well-known amateur to one of the club. 'No, we haven't 

 broken up,' was the reply ; ' we've broken down ; the Four- 

 Horse Club had not enough in hand to keep on with.' In 1822 

 it was revived under somewhat altered conditions. The carriage 

 was a brown landaulet without ornaments ; the horses might be 

 of any colour, and the harness was brass-mounted, instead of 

 silver-plated, as formerly. Even these more simple regulations 

 were ineffectual to restore the club to its earlier popularity, and, 

 after existing for a year or two in a casual sort of way, it finally 

 died out altogether about 1824. Meantime the B.D.C. held 

 its way, was never short of its 25 members, who drove to 

 its meets with unfailing regularity, at least till the year 1824, 

 when the long journeys to Bensington were abandoned, and 

 the expeditions confined, as already stated, to the Black Dog at 

 Bedfont. B.D.C., nevertheless, stood just as well for Bedfont as 

 for Bensington, and as long as the club initials only were used 

 there was no great solecism in giving up the visits to the place 

 from which the club took its name. The alteration, however, ap- 

 pears to have been in accord with the taste of the members, and 

 the Bedfont dinners gained in popularity. One night, after the 

 club had dined, the King stopped to change horses at the Black 

 Dog, and, on the members being informed that His Majesty's 

 carriage was at the door, they drank his health with three times 

 three. The King shortly afterwards saw one of the B.D.C. 

 men, and having acknowledged the loyalty of his subjects on 

 the night in question, asked, ' Was not old John Warde among 



