330 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



these meets ; after driving round the Park many of 

 the coaches go home, to be seen no more. 



The Coaching Club is a far more recent institution, 

 and cannot lay claim to quite the same exclusiveness as 

 the Four-in-Hand Club, as has been explained. The 

 only club-houses or places at which the members of 

 these two driving clubs can meet and discuss coaching 

 are the Badminton and Road Clubs. There should 

 also be a club for hunting men, more particularly for 

 Masters of Hounds, where they might meet and discuss 

 matters relating to hunting, the distribution of their 

 countries, and all matters relating to the well-being of 

 the chase. 



As I have before said, there were driving clubs 

 even before the time of the Four-in-Hand Club. 

 In Dickens's "Dictionary of London," "the Benson 

 Driving Club is said to have been established in 1807 

 and broken up In 1854. It consisted of twenty-five 

 members, and was the last of the old coaching clubs 

 known to the past generation ; as the Four-horse Club, 

 which was organised a year later, expired in 1826^ 

 and the Richmond Driving Club did not last long." 



In the old days there were a number of country 

 squires, noblemen, and persons of less degree, who 

 took shares in horsing fast coaches for the mere 

 privilege of driving them, such as the celebrated 

 Captain Barclay of Ury. Driving four-in-hand became 

 the fashion towards the end of the last century, when 

 George, Prince of Wales, extended to It his patronage; 

 not that the Prince drove four-in-hand himself, the 

 team in his travelling barouche consisted of six horses, 

 four of them in hand, whilst the two additional leaders 

 were ridden by postillions. In those days the Pavilion 

 at Brighton was full of guests, the Steyne was crowded 



