DOWN THE ROAD IN DAYS OF YORE 49 



details of road-travelling life which, once conimo]i- 

 place enough, afford to ourselves not a little enter- 

 tainment. Equally entertaining, too, and full of 

 unconscious humour, are those would-be eloquent 

 rhapsodies of his which could only then have 

 rendered him an unmitigated bore. It should 

 be noted here that although his picture of road- 

 life is in general reliable enough, we must by no 

 means take him at his word when he says he 

 journeyed all the way from Newcastle to London. 

 We cannot believe in a traveller makiu"; that 

 claim Avho devotes many jiages to the first fifteen 

 miles betAveen Newcastle and Durham, and yet 

 between Durham ami Grantham, a distance of a 

 hundred and fifty miles, not only finds nothing of 

 interest, but fails to tell us whether he went by the 

 Eoroughbridge or the York route, and mentions 

 nothing of the coach halting for the night betAveen 

 the beginning of the journey at NeAvcastle, and 

 the first specified night's halt at Grantham, a 

 hundred and sixty-five miles aAvay. Those Avere 

 the times Avhen the coaches inned cA^ery night, 

 and not until the " AYonder " London and 

 ShreAvsbury Coach Avas started, in 1825, did any 

 coach ever succeed in doing much more than a 

 hundred miles a day. So much in adverse 

 criticism. Dut AA^hile a very casual glance is 

 sufficient to expose his pretensions of having made 

 the entire journey in this manner, it is equally 

 evident that he kncAV portions of the road, and 

 that he Avas couAcrsant Avith the manners and 

 customs that then obtained along it — as no one 

 VOL. II. 4. 



