THE STAGE-WAGGONS 105 



by the University. He conveyed the letters, too, 

 and had a very lucrative business of letting out 

 saddle-horses. In those days, before coaches had 

 come into existence, and when able-bodied men, 

 despising the slow progress of the waggon, rode 

 horseback, his stable of forty horses, " lit for 

 travelling, with boots, bridle, and whip, to furnish 

 the gentlemen at once, witliout going from college 

 to college to borrow," was in great request. From 

 his determination to allow no picking and choos- 

 ing, and his refusing to allow any horse to be 

 taken out of its proper turu, first arose that 

 immortal proverb, " Hobson's Choice, that or 

 none " — in other words, no choice whatever. 

 University Avitlings made great play Avith Hobson, 

 and when at last he died, quite a sheaf of lyrical 

 epitaphs on him appeared, from the well-known 

 ones by Milton to the more obscure exercises of 

 anonymous versifiers.* 



The business of stage-waggoning ol^tained its 

 first specific notice so late as 1617, when Tynes 

 Morison, in his Itinerary, mentioned the " carryers, 

 who have long covered waggons, in which they 

 carry passengers from place to place ; but this 

 kind of journey is so tedious by reason they must 

 take waggon very early and come very late to 

 their innes, that none but women and people of 

 inferior condition travel in this sort." 



How early they were accustomed to start, and 



* For a detailed notice of Hobson, with a portiait of him, 

 seethe Cambridge, Ely, and King's Lynn Road, pp. 10-12, 32, 

 140, 157-166. 



