lo THE COACHING AGE. 



shouted along by the Post OflSce servants, and sum- 

 moned to draw up, the great ancestral names of cities 

 known to history through a thousand years — Lincoln, 

 Winchester, Portsmouth, Gloucester, Oxford, Bristol, 

 York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow^, Perth, Stirling, 

 Aberdeen — expressing the grandeur of the empire by 

 the antiquity of its towns, and the grandeur of the 

 mail establishment by the diffusive radiations of its 

 separate missions. Every moment you heard the 

 thunder of lids locked down upon the mail-bags. 

 That sound to each individual mail is the signal for 

 drawing off, which process is the finest part of the 

 entire spectacle. Then come the horses into play. 

 Horses ! Can these be horses that bound off with 

 the action and gestures of leopards ? What stir ! 

 what a thundering of wheels ! what a trampling of 

 hoofs I what a sounding of trumpets ! what farewell 

 cheers I what redoubling peals of brotherly congratu- 

 lations, ''connecting the name of the particular mail — 

 " Liverpool forever !" with the name of the particular 

 victory. " Badajoz for ever!" or "Salamanca for 

 ever !" 



' The half-slumbering consciousness that all night 

 long and all the next day — perhaps for even a longer 

 period— many of these mails, like fire racing along a 

 train of gunpowder, will be kindling at every instant 

 new successions of burning joy, has an obscure effect 



