TIMES PAST AND PRESENT. 91 



despicably living in idleness, trusting to eleemo- 

 synary assistance from friends, or being guilty 

 of acts that, if not in law, at least in morality, 

 amount to neither more nor less than those of the 

 common swindler. I can instance the case of one 

 of the most gentlemanlike men I know. He was in 

 difficulties ; he took a coach, showed himself tip top 

 as a coachman while on his box, and preserved the 

 perfect manners of a gentleman when off. He is 

 since married, enjoys an income of nine hundred 

 a-year, and has every prospect of shortly coming into 

 a title, with a property of fifteen thousand. I sin- 

 cerely msh his imprudences had never laid him open 

 to charges of a less commendable nature than driving 

 a coach. I consider his doing the latter as a redeem- 

 ing clause in his favour Avhen opposed to the former. 

 There can be no doubt the Four-in-Hand Club, and 

 the mania for driving, first gave that impetus to 

 coaching that eventually brought it to the zenith of 

 its glory — "but all its glory's past." Sixty years 

 since, the post-boy was considered as holding a supe- 

 rior station to the stage-coachman, and was in fact 

 superior in his manners and address to the other. 

 This naturally followed from his having more inter- 

 course ^dth gentlemen, who, in those days, would as 

 soon have thought of travelling by the road-waggon 

 as by the stage-coach ; consequently the persons em- 

 ployed to drive coaches were the red-faced burly gin- 

 and-beer drinking animal we see represented in some 

 old prints ; Avhile the post-boy was a smart, knowing, 

 intelligent fellow, and a complete coxcomb in his 

 way : when his horses became too bad for his use, 

 they were turned over to the coach. The speed, as 

 it was then thought, of the mail-coaches first induced 



