The Sport of Our (Ancestors 



numerous driving associations whose processions used, 

 some twenty years ago, to be among the most im- 

 posing, as well as peculiar, spectacles in and about the 

 metropolis. 



The fashion, however, was not one of venerable standing 

 among us — gentlemen-coachmen not having been known in 

 England for more than about half a century. We believe 

 we ourselves remember the Anglo-Ericthonius — the late Hon. 

 Charles Finch, brother to the late Earl of Aylesford, who 

 used to drive his own coach-and-four, disguised in a livery 

 great coat. Soon after his debut, however, the celebrated 

 ' Tommy Onslow,' Sir John Lade, and others, mounted the 

 box in their own character. Sir John was esteemed a re- 

 nowned judge of coach-horses and carriages, and a good 

 coachman of the old school ; but everything connected with 

 the coach-box has undergone such a change in the last 

 twenty-five years, that the Nestors of the art are no longer 

 to be quoted. Mr. Warde, the jaiher oj the fields may now, 

 we believe, be called the jaiher oj the road also ; and if the 

 old heavy Gloucester * six insides, and sixteen out, with 

 two tons of luggage,' were to reappear on the road, no 

 man's advice would be better than his. 



Count Pecchio, whose little volume on England lately 

 appeared, has a luculent chapter on the astonishing con- 

 venience of our public conveyances, and the finished elegance 

 of our private ones. We hardly, indeed, know which of 

 the two things is more likely to strike the imagination of a 

 foreigner, no matter from what part of the world he may 



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