A REAL DEVIL, A HEAL COACHMAN. 75 



and well, but he will not nor cannot drive every thing 

 equally well. If the once-celebrated Dick Vaughan, 

 better known as " Hell-fire Dick," could rise from his 

 tomb, though he was generally accommodated with 

 teams that no one but himself would drive, made up 

 of as great devils in their way as poor Dick was in 

 his, he could no more get the Duchess of Buccleuch's 

 carriage up to the Opera-door on a crowded night as 

 Her Grace's coachman can, than he could fly ; and 

 give the other four of Dick's queer ones to handle, he 

 would very soon, as Dick would say, " begin to look 

 nine ways for Sunday." There can be no doubt but 

 the stage-coachman requires, and fortunately acquires, 

 generally speaking, more diversified knowledge in 

 coachmanship than any other votary of the whip in 

 existence, particularly if driving sixty or seventy 

 miles across a country. Here he will have perhaps 

 nine or ten teams to drive, to learn and manage the 

 tempers of from forty to fifty different horses, inde- 

 pendent of as many changes of those horses as lame- 

 ness, illness, accidents, and various other circumstances 

 may from time to time render necessary, and how to 

 get over all sorts of ground, with the greatest advan- 

 tage as to time, the ease of his horses, and the safety 

 of his passengers clearly showing that driving the 

 same vehicle, I mean here a coach, in different situ- 

 ations and under different circumstances, requires 

 quite different management. I will instance a fact 

 that came under my immediate observation. 



A coachman, whom I will not name further than 

 by saying that he was considered a capital whip 

 (and so he was in the situation he had held for many 

 years) drove from a country-place to Holborn, 

 twenty-two miles, and back in the evening, over a 



