12 THE EXETER ROAD 



and the ' New London Inn,' Exeter, both in those 

 days inns of good, solid feeding, with drinking to 

 match. It was of the first-named inn, and of another 

 equally famous, that the poet (who must have been 

 of the fleshly and Bacchic order) wrote : — 



At the Swan with Two Throttles 



I tippled two bottles, 



And bothered the beef at the Bull and the Mouth. 



One can readily imagine the sharp-set and shivering 

 traveller, fresh from the perils of the road, ' bothering 

 the beef with his huge appetite, and tippling the 

 generous liquor (which, of course, was port) with loud 

 appreciative smackings of the lips. 



Then there were the ' Sovereign,' the ' Regulator,' 

 and the ' Eclipse,' going by the Blandford and 

 Dorchester route; the 'Prince George,' 'Herald,' 'Pilot,' 

 ' Traveller,' and ' Quicksilver,' by Crewkerne and 

 Yeovil ; and the ' Defiance,' 'Celerity,' and ' Subscrip- 

 tion,' by Amesbury and Ilminster ; to leave unnamed 

 the short stages and the bye-road coaches, all helping 

 to swell the traffic in those old days, now utterly 

 forgotten. 



IV 



A very great authority on coaching — the famous 

 ' Nimrod,' the mainstay of the Sporting Magazine — 

 writing in 1836, compares the exquisite perfection to 

 which coaching had attained at that time with the era 



