TIMES PAST AND PKESENT. 91 



despicably living in idleness, trusting to eleemo- 

 synary assistance from friends, or being guilty 

 of acts that, if not in law, at least in morality, 

 amount to neither more nor less than those of the 

 common swindler. I can instance the case of one 

 of the most gentlemanlike men I know. He was in 

 difficulties ; he took a coach, showed himself tip top 

 as a coachman while on his box, and preserved the 

 perfect manners of a gentleman when off. He is 

 since married, enjoys an income of nine hundred 

 a-year, and has every prospect of shortly coming into 

 a title, with a property of fifteen thousand. I sin- 

 cerely wish his imprudences had never laid him open 

 to charges of a less commendable nature than driving 

 a coach. I consider his doing the latter as a redeem- 

 ing clause in his favour^ when opposed to the former. 

 There can be no doubt the Four-in-Hand Club, and 

 the mania for driving, first gave that impetus to 

 coaching that eventually brought it to the zenith of 

 its glory "but all its glory's past." Sixty years 

 since, the post-boy was considered as holding a supe- 

 rior station to the stage-coachman, and was in fact 

 superior in his manners and address to the other. 

 This naturally followed from his having more inter- 

 course with gentlemen, who, in those days, would as 

 soon have thought of travelling by the road-waggon 

 as by the stage-coach ; consequently the persons em- 

 ployed to drive coaches were the red-faced burly gin- 

 and-beer drinking animal we see represented in some 

 old prints ; while the post-boy was a smart, knowing, 

 intelligent fellow, and a complete coxcomb in his 

 way: when his horses became too bad for his use, 

 they were turned over to the coach. The speed, as 

 it was then thought, of the mail-coaches first induced 



