THE AMATEURS 241 



"Worcester Old Ply" for a wager, and won it, 

 although his coach Avent the Benson road, four 

 miles longer than the route his opponent had to 

 travel. 



Warde's driving was by no means in the later 

 style, and he probably would have been very much 

 out of his element with the smart galloping teams 

 of the Golden Age. He was, however, of those 

 who Avere fit to be trusted with a heavy load 

 behind Aveak horses and on bad roads. There Avas 

 a peculiarity about him as regarded the driving of 

 his OAvn horses Avhich the history of the road, it 

 was said, could not jiarallel. Let the journey be 

 in length Avhat it might, he ncA^er took the horses 

 out of his 2^1'ivate coach, giving them only now 

 and then a little hay and a mouthful of Avater 

 at a roadside public-house. When he resided in 

 Northamptonshire, sixty-three miles from London, 

 the journey Avas ahvays accomj^lished 1)y his team 

 " at a pull," as he called it. The pace, as may be 

 supposed, Avas not quick. John Warde was one 

 of the founders of the B.D.C., or Benson Driving 

 Club, in 1807. 



Amateur coaching, as a fashionable amuse- 

 ment, took its rise on the Brighton Boad. Looked 

 upon Avith contempt ])y stalwart and bluff Warde 

 and his kind, it nevertheless grcAV and flourished 

 in the hands of the Barrymores and their con- 

 temporaries. Sir John Lade and Colonel Mellish ; 

 and in the early years of the nineteenth century 

 the education of no gay young blood AA'as com- 

 plete until he had acquired the art of driving 

 VOL. II. 16 



