^Nimrod ' 



or Grange. We will, however, only go back ninety-four 

 years. In 1742, the Oxford stage-coach left London at 

 seven o'clock in the morning, and reached Uxbridge at 

 mid-day. It arrived at High- Wycombe at ^n^ in the evening, 

 where it rested for the night ; and proceeded at the same 

 rate for the seat of learning on the morrow. Here, then, 

 were ten hours consumed each day in travelling twenty- 

 seven miles, and nearly two days in performing what is now 

 done with the greatest ease under six hours. To go from 

 London to York — two hundred miles — used to take six 

 days ; it now occupies twenty hours ! ^ From London to 

 Exeter, eighty years ago, the proprietors of coaches promised 

 * a safe and expeditious journey in a fortnight.* Private 

 carriages now accomplish the journey — one hundred and 

 seventy-five miles — in twenty hours ; and the mail (the 

 Devonport) in seventeen, passing through Wincaunton, a 

 new route, within the last month. The Manchester Tele- 

 graph, from the Bull and Mouth, performs her journey,, 

 with the utmost regularity, in eighteen hours ! 



May we be permitted, since we have mentioned the 

 ^Arabian Nights^ to make a little demand on our readers* 

 fancy, and suppose it possible that a worthy old gentleman of 

 this said year — 1742 — had fallen comfortably asleep, a la 

 Dodswell, and never awoke till Monday last in Piccadilly ? 

 ' What coach, your honour ? ' says a ruffianly-looking fellow, 

 much like what he might have been had he lived a hundred 



^ According to Creech's ' Fugitive Pieces' there was only one coach from 

 Edinburgh to London, which was from twelve to sixteen days on the road. 



183 



