96 DONE TO A TURN. 



untaught, stupid house- servant plagues and mortifies 

 one by his awkwardness ; but a similar sort of coach- 

 man should never be trusted at large without a string 

 and collar about his neck to keep him off coach-boxes. 

 If this won't do, d n him, put a ring in his nose and 

 fasten him up. 



I have only, in the foregoing page or two, paid 

 a just tribute to the merits of the coachmen of 

 noblemen or men of large fortunes, but I must at 

 the same time remark, that I never yet saw a 

 gentleman's coachman who could drive four horses 

 that he had been unaccustomed to : they make the 

 worst stage-coachmen of any men who have been in 

 the habit of driving at all ; they have been so used to 

 horses all matched in step and temper that they are 

 absolutely lost with any others. I would put any one of 

 the best London coachmen, who drives four-in-hand 

 occasionally, behind some teams over a thirteen-mile 

 stage : here he would not only fail in keeping his time 

 to perhaps half an hour, but would very likely, if with 

 something like three tons and a half behind him, 

 not get them home at all, or at all events would bring 

 them to that enviable state where three stand still, 

 while (as Matthews used to say) he whops the fourth. 

 Coachmanship is therefore to be shown in various 

 ways, as well as the want of it, and is exhibited 

 under as various circumstances. Show me the man 

 who would, as Mr. Agar did (I believe it was Mr. 

 Agar), bring his four-in-hand out of Grosvenor Place, 

 down Messrs. Tattersall's passage into the yard, round 

 the cupola there, and back again into Grosvenor 

 Place ; the whole done each horse all the time in a 

 trot a feat unprecedented in the annals of coach- 

 manship, and one never before, or I believe since, 



