CHAPTER XII 



END OF THE COACHING AGE 



" This is the patent age of inventions." — Byron. 



In 1789, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, of Shrewsbury, 

 in writing his poem, the Loves of the Plants, 

 penned a most remarkably accurate proj^hecy, 

 comj)arable with Mother Shijiton's earlier " car- 

 riages without horses shall go." He wrote : — 



Soon shall thy arm, unconqueied steam, afar 

 Drag the slow barge, or urge the rapid car ; 

 Or on wide waving wings expanded bear 

 The flying chariot through the realms of air. 

 Fair crews, triumphant, smiling from above, 

 Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move ; 

 Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd. 

 And armies shrink beneath the rushing cloud. 



The first part of this prophecy Avas fulfilled in 

 the period between 1823 and 183J3, when steam- 

 carriages — the motor-cars of that age — had a brief 

 pojiularity. 



Before railways successfully assailed the coaches, 

 horsed vehicles had faced the inventions of a 

 numl)er of ingenious persons Avho wrestled Avitli 

 that problem of steam traction on common roads 

 which had attracted Murdock in 1781. Trevithick 

 took it up in 1800, and otliers followed ; but it 

 was not until 1823 that the subject began greatly 



