3i8 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



Here's to the dear little damsels within, 



Here's to the swells on the top, sir ; 

 Here's to the music in three feet of tin, 



Here's to the tapering crop, sir. 



Here's to the diagsmen I've dragged into song — 



Salisbury, Mountain and Co., sir ; 

 Here's to the Cracknell that cracks 'em along, 



Five twenty times at a go, sir. 



Here's to MacAdani, the Mac of all Macs, 



Here's to the road we ne'er tire on. 

 Let me but roll o'er the granite he cracks. 

 Ride 3'e who like it on iron. 

 Let the sttam-pot 

 Hiss till it's hot ; 

 Give me the speed 

 Of the Tantivy trot. 



It is a long set of verses, but it should not 

 be difficult, if any one had the mind to it, to 

 continue them indefinitely. In truth, they limp 

 not a little, and do not go the swinging pace 

 of the "Tantivy" itself. But this was the best 

 the old-time enthusiasm for the road could 

 jiroduce, and that it should have been so popular 

 at coaching festivities shows that although coach- 

 men, amateur and professional, were severe critics 

 of other coaching matters, they were sufficiently 

 indulgent to literary efforts on this especial 

 theme. 



RoAvland Eyles Egerton Warburton, who wrote 

 the "Tantivy Trot" in 1831, at i\\^ request of 

 Charles Eord for something to celebrate the 

 Birmingham " Tantivy " coach, was regarded by 



