HO IV THE COACHES WERE NAMED 299 



in this country ; and the coaches long carried an 

 echo of the wonderment then excited. Coach- 

 i^roprietors had, indeed, by this time begun to 

 see the commercial advantage of imjiressing the 

 public with a sounding name. Already, by long 

 use and wont, ears had become blunted by the 

 name of the Flying Machines, which had fallen 

 unmeaningly upon several generations accustomed 

 to liberally discount the absurd pretension. No 

 one at this time, it is safe to say, ever received 

 a mental impression of flying when a flying 

 coach was named. The name had become a mere 

 convention. The Balloon was therefore a god- 

 send to coach-proprietors who, in naming their 

 conveyances after it, succeeded for a while in 

 reviving an outworn figure of speed, and thus 

 again suggested the idea of their coaches gracefully 

 navigating the emjiyrean, rather than painfully 

 staggering along the rutty roads. 



The " Defiance " coaches bring us closer to 

 the great Augustan era of smart coaches and 

 great emulation along the road. The earliest 

 coach of this name was put on the Leeds and 

 Hull road in 1784^, and became the parent of many 

 more. Extraordinary ingenuity was used in the 

 selection of "telling" names, supposed to instantly 

 discover the character of a coach to travellers. 

 The various " Highflyers," for example, sjioke to 

 sporting men of a speed that might be neck or 

 nothing. The typical sportsman would book by 

 the "Highflyer," the "Vixen," "Spitfire," the 

 "Plying Childers," "Lightning," or "Raj^id/' 



