" IT IS AN HONOUR THAT I DREAMT NOT OF." 73 



more to be held than a locomotive engine, for Avhich 

 reason we should never get their steam up too high. 



Having got thus far in the Observations on Driving, 

 1 must now do what I ought to have done at the 

 commencement ; that is, show my motive for com- 

 mencing at all: I have sometimes indulged in the habit 

 of snatching up my pen, scribbling a few sheets of 

 paper, and then beginning to make choice of a subject 

 to write upon. I have not, however, in this instance 

 been quite as remiss as I often am, for I really had a 

 fixed motive in commencing my first line. It was 

 neither more nor less than this — I consider a 

 regular treatise on driving, in its general sense of 

 the word, would be a work of great utility; and 

 all I intend or hope to do by the few pages I 

 propose to write on the subject is to show that 

 driving is not quite comprehended in sitting behind a 

 horse, or given number of horses, with the reins in 

 the driver's hand, and trusting to Providence and 

 good luck for getting along in safety by so doing. My 

 hope is to- induce some competent person to publish a 

 work of the description to which I allude. I do not 

 mean a mere theoretical author, but one who, from 

 practice and experience, is acquainted with all the 

 minutiae of the business that constitutes the finished 

 coachman. I have been generally accounted in my 

 own person a very tolerable waggoner ; but I am de- 

 terred from attempting a work of the kind myself, 

 from having just sense enough to be aware that 

 if I could drive four horses about four times as well 

 as I can, I could point out many others who would 

 then be four times as good coachmen as myself, 

 though I have handled some very rum ones in private 

 and public carriages, have met with my accidents 



