When good Vandergoes, and his provident If Prior had been living now he would have found the greatest want of travelling accommodation in a country for whose more serious wants we have to answer, without having her wit to help us to an excuse. There is a story told of an Irish post-chaise, the occupier of which, without quitting it, had to take to his heels. It was going down hill as fast as wind and the impossibility of stopping could make it, when the foot passengers observed a couple of legs underneath, emulating, with all their might, the rapidity of the wheels. The bottom had come out; and the gentleman was obliged to run for his life.We must relate another anecdote of an Irish post-chaise, merely to show the natural tendencies of the people to be lawless in self-defence. A friend of ours, who was travelling among them, used to have this proposition put to him by the postillion whenever he approached a turnpike—"Plase your honour, will I drive at the pike?" The pike hung loosely across the road. Luckily, the rider happened to be of as lawless a turn for justice as the driver, so the answer was always a cordial one—"Oh yes—drive at the pike." The pike made way accordingly; and in a minute or two the gate people were heard and seen, screaming in vain after the illegal charioteers.
"Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus."
Virgil.
"The driver's borne beyond their swearing,
And the post-chaise is hard of hearing."
As to following them, nobody in Ireland thinks of moving too much, legal or illegal.
The pleasure to be had in a mail-coach is not so much at one's command as that in a post-chaise. There is generally too little room in it, and too much hurry out of it. The company must not lounge over their breakfast, even if they are all agreed. It is an understood thing that they are to be uncomfortably punctual. They must get in at seven o'clock, though they are all going upon business they do not like or care about, or will have to wait till nine before they can do anything. Some persons know how to manage this haste, and breakfast and dine in the cracking of a whip. They stick with their fork, they joint, they sliver, they bolt. Legs and wings vanish before them like a dragon's before a knight-errant. But if one is not a clergyman or a regular jolly fellow, one has no chance this way. To be diffident or polite is fatal. It is a merit eagerly acknowledged, and as quickly set aside. At last you begin upon a leg, and are called off.
A very troublesome degree of science is necessary for being well settled in the coach. We remember travelling in our youth, upon the north road, with an orthodox elderly gentleman of venerable peruke, who talked much with a grave-looking young man about universities, and won our inexperienced heart with a notion that he was deep in Horace and Virgil. He was deeper in his wig.
Towards evening, as he seemed restless, we asked with much diffidence whether a change, even for the worse, might not relieve him; for we were riding backwards, and thought that all elderly people disliked that way. He insinuated the very objection; so we recoiled from asking him again.
In a minute or two, however, he insisted that we were uneasy ourselves, and that he must relieve us for our own sake. We protested as filially as possible against this; but at last, out of mere shame of disputing the point with so benevolent an elder, we changed seats with him.
The Post-Chaise
After an interval of bland meditation, we found the evening sun full in our face. His new comfort set him dozing; and every now and then he jerked his wig in our eyes, till we had the pleasure of seeing him take out a nightcap and look very[21]
[22]
[23] ghastly. The same person, and his serious young companion, tricked us out of a good bed we happened to get at the inn.
The greatest peculiarity attending a mail-coach arises from its travelling at night. The gradual decline of talk, the incipient snore, the rustling and shifting of legs and nightcaps, the cessation of other noises on the road—the sound of the wind or rain, of the moist circuit of the wheels, and of the time-beating tread of the horses—all dispose the traveller, who cannot sleep, to a double sense of the little that is left him to observe.
The coach stops, the door opens, a rush of cold air announces the demands and merits of the guard, who is taking his leave, and is anxious to remember us. The door is clapped to again; the sound of everything outside becomes dim; and voices are heard knocking up the people of the inn, and answered by issuing yawns and excuses. Wooden shoes clog heavily about. The horses' mouths are heard, swilling the water out of tubs. All is still again, and some one in the coach takes a long breath. The driver mounts, and we resume our way.
It happens that we can sleep anywhere except in a mail-coach; so that we hate to see a prudent, warm, old fellow, who has been eating our fowls and intercepting our toast, put on his night-cap in order to settle himself till morning. We rejoice in the digs that his neighbour's elbow gives him, and hail the long-legged traveller that sits opposite.
A passenger of our wakeful description must try to content himself with listening to the sounds above mentioned; or thinking of his friends; or turning verses, as Sir Richard Blackmore did, "to the rumbling of his coach's wheels."
The stage-coach is a great and unpretending accommodation. It is a cheap substitute, notwithstanding all its eighteen-penny and two-and-sixpenny temptations, for keeping a carriage or a horse; and we really think, in spite of its gossiping, is no mean help to village liberality; for its passengers are so mixed, so often varied, so little yet so much together, so compelled to accommodate, so willing to pass a short time pleasantly, and so liable to the criticism of strangers, that it is hard if they do not get a habit of speaking, or even thinking more kindly of one another than if they mingled less often, or under other circumstances.
The old and infirm are treated with reverence; the ailing sympathised with; the healthy congratulated; the rich not distinguished; the poor well met; the young, with their faces conscious of ride, patronised, and allowed to be extra.
Even the fiery, nay the fat, learn to bear with each other; and if some high-thoughted persons will talk now and then of their great acquaintances, or their preference of a carriage, there is an instinct which tells the rest that they would not make such appeals to their good opinion if they valued it so little as might be supposed. Stoppings and dust are not pleasant, but the latter may be had on grander occasions; and if anyone is so unlucky as never to keep another stopping himself, he must be content with the superiority of his virtue.
The mail or stage-coachman, upon the whole, is no inhuman mass of great-coat, gruffness, civility, and old boots. The latter is the politer, from the smaller range of acquaintance, and his necessity for preserving them.
His face is red, and his voice rough, by the same process of drink and catarrh. He has a silver watch with a steel-chain, and plenty of loose silver in his pocket, mixed with half-pence. He serves the houses he goes by for a clock. He takes a glass at every alehouse; for thirst, when it is dry, and for warmth when it is wet.
He likes to show the judicious reach of his whip, by twigging a dog or a goose on the road, or children that get in the way. His tenderness to descending old ladies is particular. He touches his hat to Mr. Smith. He gives "the young woman" a ride, and lends her his box-coat in the rain. His liberality in imparting his knowledge to any one that has the good fortune to ride on the box with him is a happy mixture of deference, conscious possession, and familiarity. His information chiefly lies in the occupancy of houses on the road, prize-fighters, Bow Street runners, and accidents.
He concludes that you know Dick Sams, or Old Joey, and proceeds to relate some of the stories that relish his pot and tobacco in the evening. If any of the four-in-hand gentry go by, he shakes his head, and thinks they might find something better to do. His contempt for them is founded on modesty.
He tells you that his off-hand horse is as pretty a goer as ever was, but that Kitty—"Yeah, now there, Kitty, can't you be still? Kitty's a devil, sir, for all you wouldn't think it." He knows that the boys on the road admire him, and gives the horses an indifferent lash with his whip as they go by. If you wish to know what rain and dust can do, you should look at his old hat. There is an indescribably placid and paternal look in the position of his corduroy knees and old top-boots on the foot-board, with their pointed toes and never-cleaned soles. His
We had once the pleasure of being beaten by him in that capital art, he having brought up against us an unusual number of those cross-armed letters, as puzzling to verse-cappers as iron-cats unto cavalry, ycleped X's; which said warfare he was pleased to call to mind in after times, unto divers of our comrades.
The modest and natural greatness with which he used to say "Yait" to his horses, and then turn round with his rosy gills, and an eye like a fish, and give out the required verse, can never pass away from us, as long as verses or horses run.
Of the hackney-coach we cannot make as short work as many persons like to make of it in reality. Perhaps it is partly a sense of the contempt it undergoes, which induces us to endeavour to make the best of it. But it has its merits, as we shall show presently. In the account of its demerits we have been anticipated by a new, and we are sorry to say a very good, poetess, of the name of Lucy V—— L——, who has favoured us with a sight of a manuscript poem, in which they are related with great nicety and sensitiveness.
Reader. What, sir, sorry to say that a lady is a good poetess?
Indicator. Only inasmuch, madam, as the lady gives such authority to the anti-social view of this subject, and will not agree with us as to the beatitude of the hackney-coach.—But hold:—upon turning to the manuscript again, we find that the objections are put into the mouth of a dandy courtier. This makes a great difference. The hackney resumes all which it had lost in the good graces of the fair authoress. The only wonder is, how the courtier could talk so well. Here is the passage:—
"Eban, untempted by the Pastry-cooks
(Of Pastry he got store within the Palace), With hasty steps, wrapp'd cloak, and solemn looks, Incognito upon his errand sallies; His smelling-bottle ready for the alleys; He pass'd the Hurdy-gurdies with disdain, Vowing he'd have them sent on board the galleys: Just as he made his vow, it 'gan to rain, Therefore he call'd a coach, and bade it drive amain.
'I'll pull the string,' said he, and further said, 'Polluted Jarvey! Ah, thou filthy hack! Whose strings of life are all dried up and dead, Whose linsey-wolsey lining hangs all slack, Whose rug is straw, whose wholeness is a crack; And evermore thy steps go clatter-clitter; Whose glass once up can never be got back, Who prov'st, with jolting arguments and bitter, That 'tis of vile no-use to travel in a litter.
'Thou inconvenience! thou hungry crop For all corn! thou snail creeper to and fro, Who while thou goest ever seem'st to stop, And fiddle-faddle standest while you go; I' the morning, freighted with a weight of woe, Unto some Lazar-house thou journiest, And in the evening tak'st a double row Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest, Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west.
'By thy ungallant bearing and sad mien, An inch appears the utmost thou couldst budge; Yet at the slightest nod, or hint, or sign, Round to the curb-stone patient dost thou trudge, School'd in a beckon, learned in a nudge; A dull-eyed Argus watching for a fare; Quiet and plodding, thou dost bear no grudge To whisking Tilburies or Phaetons rare, Curricles, or Mail-coaches, swift beyond compare.'
Philosophising thus, he pull'd the check, And bade the coachman wheel to such a street; Who turning much his body, more his neck, Louted full low, and hoarsely did him greet."The tact here is so nice of the infirmities which are but too likely to beset our poor old friend, that we should only spoil it to say more. To pass then to the merits.
One of the greatest helps to a sense or merit in other things is a consciousness of one's own wants. Do you despise a hackney-coach? Get tired; get old; get young again. Lay down your carriage, or make it less uneasily too easy. Have to stand up half-an-hour, out of a storm, under a gateway. Be ill, and wish to visit a friend who is worse. Fall in love, and want to sit next your mistress. Or if all this will not do, fall in a cellar.
Ben Jonson, in a fit of indignation at the niggardliness of James the First, exclaimed, "He despises me, I suppose, because I live in an alley:—tell him his soul lives in an alley." We think we see a hackney-coach moving out of its ordinary patience, and hear it say, "You there, who sit looking so scornfully at me out of your carriage, are yourself the thing you take me for. Your understanding is a hackney-coach. It is lumbering, rickety, and at a stand. When it moves it is drawn by things like itself. It is at once the most stationary and the most servile of commonplaces. And when a good thing is put into it, it does not know it."
But it is difficult to imagine a hackney-coach under so irritable an aspect. Hogarth has drawn a set of hats or wigs with countenances of their own. We have noticed the same thing in the faces of houses; and it sometimes gets in one's way in a landscape-painting, with the outlines of the rocks and trees.
A friend tells us that the hackney-coach has its countenance, with gesticulation besides: and now he has pointed it out, we can easily fancy it. Some of them look chucked under the chin, some nodding, some coming at you sideways. We shall never find it easy, however, to fancy the irritable aspect above-mentioned.
A hackney-coach always appeared to us the most quiescent of movables. Its horses and it, slumbering on a stand, are an emblem of all patience in creation, animate and inanimate.
The submission with which the coach takes every variety of the weather, dust, rain, and wind, never moving but when some eddying blast makes its old body shiver, is only surpassed by the vital patience of the horses.
Can anything better illustrate the poet's line about
"—Years that bring the philosophic mind,"
than the still-hung head, the dim indifferent eye, the dragged and blunt-cornered mouth, and the gaunt imbecility of body
dropping its weight on three tired legs in order to give repose to the lame one? When it has blinkers on, they seem to be shutting up its eyes for death, like the windows of a house. Fatigue and the habit of suffering have become as natural to the creature as the bit to its mouth.
Once in half-an-hour it moves the position of its leg, or shakes its drooping ears. The whip makes it go, more from habit than from pain. Its coat has become almost callous to minor stings. The blind and staggering fly in autumn might come to die against its cheek.
Of a pair of hackney-coach horses, one so much resembles the other that it seems unnecessary for them to compare notes. They have that within them which is beyond the comparative. They no longer bend their heads towards each other as they go. They stand together as if unconscious of one another's company. But they are not.
An old horse misses his companion, like an old man. The presence of an associate, who has gone through pain and suffering with us, need not say anything. It is talk, and memory, and everything. Something of this it may be to our old friends in harness. What are they thinking of while they stand motionless in the rain? Do they remember? Do they dream? Do they still, unperplexed as their old blood is by too many foods, receive a pleasure from the elements; a dull refreshment from the air and sun? Have they yet a palate for the hay which they pull so feebly? or for the rarer grain which induces them to perform their only voluntary gesture of any vivacity, and toss up the bags that are fastened on their mouths, to get at its shallow feast?
If the old horse were gifted with memory (and who shall say he is not, in one thing as well as another?), it might be at once the most melancholy and pleasantest faculty he has; for the commonest hack has probably been a hunter or racer; has had his days of lustre and enjoyment; has darted along the course, and scoured the pasture; has carried his master proudly, or his lady gently; has pranced, has galloped, has neighed aloud, has dared, has forded, has spurned at mastery, has graced it and made it proud, has rejoiced the eye, has been crowded to as an actor, has been all instinct with life and quickness, has had his very fear admired as courage, and been sat upon by valour as its chosen seat.
"His ears up-prick'd; his braided hanging mane
Upon his compass'd crest now stands on end; His nostrils drink the air; and forth again, As from a furnace, vapours doth he send; His eye, which scornfully glistens like fire, Shows his hot courage and his high desire. Sometimes he trots as if he told the steps, With gentle majesty, and modest pride; Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps, As who would say, lo! thus my strength is tried, And thus I do to captivate the eye Of the fair breeder that is standing by. What recketh he his rider's angry stir, His flattering holla, or his Stand, I say? What cares he now for curb, or pricking spur? For rich caparisons, or trappings gay? He sees his love, and nothing else he sees, For nothing else with his proud sight agrees. Look, when a painter would surpass the life, In limning out a well-proportion'd steed, His art with nature's workmanship at strife, As if the dead the living should exceed; So did this horse excel a common one, In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone. Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlock shag and long, Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide; High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong; Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide; Look, what a horse should have, he did not lack, Save a proud rider on so proud a back."Alas! his only riders now are the rain and a sordid harness. The least utterance of the wretchedest voice makes him stop and become a fixture. His loves were in existence at the time the old sign, fifty miles hence, was painted. His nostrils drink nothing but what they cannot help—the water out of an old tub. Not all the hounds in the world could make his ears attain any eminence. His mane is scratchy and lax. The same great poet who wrote the triumphal verses for him and his loves, has written their living epitaph:—
"The poor jades
Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips,
The gum down roping from their pale dead eyes;
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless."
K. Henry V, Act 1.
There is a song called the "High-mettled Racer," describing the progress of a favourite horse's life, from its time of vigour and glory, down to its furnishing food for the dogs. It is not as good as Shakespeare; but it will do to those who are half as kind as he.
We defy anybody to read that song, or be in the habit of singing it or hearing it sung, and treat horses as they are sometimes treated. So much good may an author do, who is in earnest, and does not go in a pedantic way to work.
We will not say that Plutarch's good-natured observation about taking care of one's old horse did more for that class of retired servants than all the graver lessons of philosophy. For it is philosophy which first sets people thinking; and then some of them put it in a more popular shape. But we will venture to say that Plutarch's observation saved many a steed of antiquity a superfluous thump; and in this respect the author of the "High-mettled Racer" (Mr. Dibdin we believe, no mean man in his way) may stand by the side of the old illustrious biographer.
Next to ancient causes, to the inevitable progress of events, and to the practical part of Christianity (which persons, the most accused of irreligion, have preserved like a glorious infant, through ages of blood and fire) the kindliness of modern philosophy is more immediately owing to the great national writers of Europe, in whose schools we have all been children:—to Voltaire in France, and Shakespeare in England. Shakespeare, in his time, obliquely pleaded the cause of the Jew, and got him set on a common level with humanity. The Jew has since been not only allowed to be human, but some have undertaken to show him as the "best good Christian though he knows it not."
We shall not dispute the title with him, nor with the other worshippers of Mammon, who force him to the same shrine. We allow, as things go in that quarter, that the Jew is as great a Christian as his neighbour, and his neighbour as great a Jew as he. There is neither love nor money lost between them.
But, at all events, the Jew is a man; and with Shakespeare's assistance the time has arrived when we can afford to acknowledge the horse for a fellow-creature, and treat him as one. We may say for him, upon the same grounds and to the same purpose, as Shakespeare said for the Israelite, "Hath not a horse organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?" Oh—but some are always at hand to cry out—it would be effeminate to think too much of these things!—Alas! we have no notion of asking the gentlemen to think too much of anything. If they will think at all, it will be a great gain.
As to effeminacy (if we must use that ungallant and partial word, for want of a better) it is cruelty that is effeminate. It is selfishness that is effeminate. Anything is effeminate which would get an excitement, or save a proper and manly trouble, at the undue expense of another. How does the case stand then between those who ill-treat their horses and those who spare them?
THE STAGE-COACH DRIVER: man and womanon top of coach with driver
To return to the coach. Imagine a fine coach and pair, which are standing at the door of a house, in all the pride of their strength and beauty, converted into what they may both become, a hackney, and its old shamblers. Such is one of the meditations of the philosophic eighteen-penny rider. A hackney-coach has often[43]
[44]
[45] the arms of nobility on it. As we are going to get into it we catch a glimpse of the faded lustre of an earl's or marquis's coronet, and think how many light and proud hearts have ascended those now rickety steps.
In this coach perhaps an elderly lady once rode to her wedding, a blooming and blushing girl. Her mother and sister were on each side of her; the bridegroom opposite in a blossom-coloured coat. They talk of everything in the world of which they are not thinking. The sister was never prouder of her. The mother with difficulty represses her own pride and tears. The bride, thinking he is looking at her, casts down her eyes, pensive in her joy.
The bridegroom is at once the proudest, and the humblest, and the happiest man in the world. For our parts, we sit in a corner, and are in love with the sister. We dream she is going to speak to us in answer to some indifferent question, when a hoarse voice comes in at the front window and says, "Whereabouts, sir?"
And grief has consecrated thee, thou reverend dilapidation, as well as joy! Thou hast carried unwilling as well as willing hearts; hearts that have thought the slowest of thy paces too fast; faces that have sat back in a corner of thee, to hide their tears from the very thought of being seen.
In thee the destitute have been taken to the poor-house, and the wounded and sick to the hospital; and many an arm has been round many an insensible waist. Into thee the friend or the lover has hurried, in a passion of tears, to lament his loss.
In thee he has hastened to condole the dying or the wretched. In thee the father, or mother, or the older kinswoman, more patient in her years, has taken the little child to the grave, the human jewel that must be parted with.
But joy appears in thee again, like the look-in of the sunshine. If the lover has gone in thee unwillingly, he has also gone willingly. How many friends hast thou not carried to merry-meetings! How many young parties to the play! How many children, whose faces thou hast turned in an instant from the extremity of lachrymose weariness to that of staring delight.
Thou hast contained as many different passions in thee as a human heart; and for the sake of the human heart, old body, thou art venerable. Thou shalt be as respectable as a reduced old gentleman, whose very slovenliness is pathetic. Thou shalt be made gay, as he is over a younger and richer table, and thou shalt be still more touching for the gaiety.
We wish the hackney-coachman were as interesting a machine as either his coach or horses; but it must be owned, that of all the driving species he is the least agreeable specimen. This is partly to be attributed to the life which has most probably put him into his situation; partly to his want of outside passengers to cultivate his gentility; and partly to the disputable nature of his fare, which always leads him to be lying and cheating. The waterman of the stand, who beats him in sordidness of appearance, is more respectable. He is less of a vagabond, and cannot cheat you.
Nor is the hackney-coachman only disagreeable in himself, but, like Falstaff reversed, the cause of disagreeableness in others; for he sets people upon disputing with him in pettiness and ill-temper. He induces the mercenary to be violent, and the violent to seem mercenary. A man whom you took for a pleasant, laughing fellow, shall all of a sudden put on an irritable look of calculation, and vow that he will be charged with a constable rather than pay the sixpence.
Even fair woman shall waive her all-conquering softness, and sound a shrill trumpet in reprobation of the extortionate charioteer, whom, if she were a man, she says, she would expose. Being a woman, then, let her not expose herself. Oh, but it is intolerable to be so imposed upon! Let the lady, then, get a pocket-book, if she must, with the hackney-coach fares in it; or a pain in the legs, rather than the temper; or, above all, let her get wiser, and have an understanding that can dispense with the good opinion of the hackney-coachman. Does she think that her rosy lips were made to grow pale about two-and-sixpence; or that the expression of them will ever be like her cousin Fanny's if she goes on?
The stage-coachman likes the boys on the road, because he knows they admire him. The hackney-coachman knows that they cannot admire him, and that they can get up behind his coach, which makes him very savage.
The cry of "Cut behind!" from the malicious urchins on the pavement wounds at once his self-love and his interest. He would not mind overloading his master's horses for another sixpence, but to do it for nothing is what shocks his humanity. He hates the boy for imposing upon him, and the boys for reminding him that he has been imposed upon; and he would willingly twinge the cheeks of all nine. The cut of his whip over the coach is malignant.
He has a constant eye to the road behind him. He has also an eye to what may be left in the coach. He will undertake to search the straw for you, and miss the half-crown on purpose. He speculates on what he may get above his fare, according to your manners or company; and knows how much to ask for driving faster or slower than usual.
He does not like wet weather so much as people suppose; for he says it rots both his horses and harness, and he takes parties out of town when the weather is fine, which produces good payments in a lump.
Lovers, late supper-eaters, and girls going home from boarding-school, are his best pay. He has a rascally air of remonstrance when you dispute half the overcharge, and according to the temper he is in, begs you to consider his bread, hopes you will not make such a fuss about a trifle; or tells you, you may take his number or sit in the coach all night.
A great number of ridiculous adventures must have taken place in which hackney-coaches were concerned. The story of the celebrated harlequin Lunn, who secretly pitched himself out of one into a tavern window, and when the coachman was about to submit to the loss of his fare, astonished him by calling out again from the inside, is too well known for repetition.
There is one of Swift, not perhaps so common. He was going, one dark evening, to dine with some great man, and was accompanied by some other clergymen, to whom he gave their cue. They were all in their canonicals. When they arrive at the house, the coachman opens the door, and lets down the steps. Down steps the Dean, very reverend in his black robes; after him comes another personage, equally black and dignified; then another; then a fourth. The coachman, who recollects taking up no greater number, is about to put up the steps, when another clergyman descends. After giving way to this other, he proceeds with great confidence to toss them up, when lo! another comes. Well, there cannot, he thinks, be more than six. He is mistaken. Down comes a seventh, then an eighth; then a ninth; all with decent intervals; the coach, in the meantime, rocking as if it were giving birth to so many demons. The coachman can conclude no less. He cries out, "The devil! the devil!" and is preparing to run away, when they all burst into laughter. They had gone round as they descended, and got in at the other door.
We remember in our boyhood an edifying comment on the proverb of "all is not gold that glistens." The spectacle made such an impression upon us, that we recollect the very spot, which was at the corner of a road in the way from Westminster to Kennington, near a stonemason's. It was a severe winter, and we were out on a holiday, thinking, perhaps, of the gallant hardships to which the ancient soldiers accustomed themselves, when we suddenly beheld a group of hackney-coachmen, not, as Spenser says of his witch,
