• THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF 



A STAGE COACHMAN 



J 



CHAPTER I 



BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND EDUCATION 



A Novel Commencement — A London Coach-office — A Country one 

 — A Provincial Book-keeper— Lord Bacon — Shakspeve — Lord 

 Byron — Inquisitiveness — An Important Confession — A Father 

 —A Mother — A Prognostic — Alexander Pope — The Itchen — A 

 Scene in Hampshire — Gibbon — A Popular Divine — A Tyrannical 

 Pedagogue — An Instructor of Youth — A Long Eide— A Hasty 

 Decision. 



EFORE the new method of 

 travelling had quite super- 

 seded the old, when railways 

 had not become so general as 

 they now are, the establish- 

 ment of the main or trunk 

 lines had dispossessed those 

 men of their seats whose 

 names were as familiar as 

 household words, when asso- 

 ciated with the requirements, the business, and the 

 pleasures of the community ; and had driven them, like 

 the ancient Britons, to the mountainous districts of 



VOL. I. 



B 



