EARLY GEORGIAN CARRIAGES

FEW new private carriages seem to have been designed during the earlier decades of the eighteenth century, although improvements and small alterations were constantly being carried out. There is an isolated reference to a sociable built apparently in Germany, and the four-wheeled chaise, or chariot À l’Anglaise, which was to be so popular thirty or forty years later, put in an appearance about this time. Of the sociable little enough can be said. The particular carriage mentioned from its small size would appear to have been built for the royal children. It was a low-hung, open carriage over a single perch, and with seats facing each other. The four-wheeled chaise was a small chariot with a wide window in front.

Gray, writing to his mother in 1739, speaks of the French chaise in which he was making the grand tour with Horace Walpole.

“The chaise,” he writes, “is a strange sort of conveyance, of much greater use than beauty; resembling an ill-shaped chariot, only with the door opening before instead of the side. Three horses draw it, one between the shafts, and the other two on each side, on one of which the postillion rides, and drives too: This vehicle will upon occasion, go fourscore miles a day, but Mr. Walpole, being in no hurry, chooses to make easy journies of it, and they are easy ones indeed; for the motion is much like that of a sedan, we go about six miles an hour, and commonly change horses at the end of it. It is true they are not very graceful steeds, but they go well, and through roads which they say are bad for France, but to me they seem gravel walks and bowling-greens; in short, it would be the finest travelling in the world, were it not for the inns.”

Such a chaise as Gray describes came to be known as a diligence, while in England the one-horse chaise was more frequently spoken of as a one-horse chair. Contemporary prints of carriages, however, are scarce, and for the most part show only the larger coaches.

These coaches were of two distinct patterns. There were the large square coaches of Charles II’s time, but there was also a new type of coach or chariot which had a curious backward tilt to the body. From a superficial examination of such a carriage, it would appear impossible for the seats to have been horizontal, and, indeed, one wonders why this form was adopted. The result of this backward tilt was to leave a space between the coachman’s box and the carriage-body itself. Here one of the grooms sat or sprawled as best he could. Four, five, or even six other grooms stood uncomfortably huddled together on a seat or slab at the back. These men must have added considerably to the weight of the coach, and certainly did not make travelling any swifter; but how necessary they were is shown by a letter of the period in which one nobleman’s servant in London informs another in Essex that my lord is resolved to set out. The Essex man is bidden to have “the keepers and persons who know the holes and the sloughs” ready to meet his lordship “with lanterns and long poles” to keep the coach on its way. So many accidents happened even on the shortest journeys that five or six men were necessary to put the coach aright. A road, such as we think of one now, simply did not exist. You had often to drive across fields in tracks which exceedingly heavy waggons had made. In 1703, to take another instance, the King of Spain, then in this country, was journeying from Portsmouth to Windsor. The difficulties he experienced on that occasion were recorded by one of the attendants.

“We set out at six in the morning to go to Petworth, and did not get out of the coaches (save only when we were overturned or stuck fast in the mire) till we arrived at our journey’s end. ’Twas hard service for the prince to sit fourteen hours in the coach that day without eating anything and passing through the worst ways that I ever saw in my life; we were thrown but once indeed in going, but both our coach, which was the leading, and his highnesse’s body-coach would have suffered very often if the nimble boors of Sussex had not frequently poised it or supported it with their shoulders from Goldalmin almost to Petworth; and the nearer we approached to the Duke’s house the more unaccessible it seemed to be. The last nine miles of the way cost us six hours’ time to conquer them, and indeed we had never done it if our good master had not several times lent us a pair of horses out of his own coach, whereby we were enabled to trace out the way for him.”

After reading such an account, it is difficult to understand why any one preferred coach to horseback on a cross-country journey. No wonder Gay was goaded to ask:—

“In the wide gulph,” he says in another place,

Yet, according to Swift, Gay was not so averse to the coach in his later years. Writing to him in 1731, the Dean says:—

“If your ramble was on horseback, I am glad of it on account of your health; but I know your arts of patching up a journey between stage-coaches and friends’ coaches: for you are as arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside.... You love twelve-penny coaches too well, without considering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half a crown a day.”

“A coach and six horses,” he goes on to say in another letter, “is the utmost exercise you can bear, and this only when you can fill it with such company as is best suited to avoid your taste, and how glad would you be if it could waft you in the air to avoid jolting.”

There is preserved a chariot of this period which is probably typical of a nobleman’s carriage of the time. It was built for one of the Bligh family, possibly the first Lord Darnley, about 1720. It is a small carriage, curved curiously in a fashion which recalls some of the French furniture of the period. The body is slung upon leather braces, there is a single wide perch, and there are small elbow springs under the body at the back. It is very elaborately ornamented, and still keeps some of its pristine magnificence. A curious point about the Darnley chariot, to which some people have wrongfully ascribed a much earlier date, is the length of the door, which reaches nearly a foot below the bottom of the body. A similar peculiarity is to be seen in another coach of the period which was built in 1713 for the Spanish representative at the time of the Peace of Utrecht. Here “the quarters rake towards the roof considerably, the roof over the doorway is arched upwards, the upper quarters are filled with large glasses of mirror plate glass.... The wheels have carved spokes and felloes.... There is a hammercloth cushion in front and a footboard supported by Tritons blowing horns.” Another Spanish coach, with spiral spokes and similar peculiarities, is preserved at Madrid. This elongated door seems peculiar to the period and may have followed upon a desire to hide the steps, though the lowness of the carriage made more than one or two of these unnecessary. Many of the Spanish coaches of this time, by the way, were without the coach-box, postilions only being employed—the story being that a certain Duke of Olivarez found that his coachman had heard and betrayed a State secret. There was, I believe, actually a law passed in Spain forbidding coachmen altogether.

French coaches were very resplendent. “When I was in France,” writes Addison in one of the earlier Spectators, “I used to gaze with great Astonishment at the Splendid Equipages and Party-Coloured Habits, of that Fantastick Nation. I was one Day in particular contemplating a Lady, that sate in a Coach adorned with gilded Cupids, and finely painted with the Loves of Venus and Adonis. The Coach was drawn by six milk-white Horses, and loaden behind with the same Number of powder’d Footmen. Just before the Lady were a Couple of beautiful Pages that were stuck among the Harness, and, by their gay Dresses and smiling Features, looked like the elder Brothers of the little Boys that were carved and painted in every corner of the Coach.” The boys “stuck among the harness” obviously were resting in that space which was made by the back-tilting of the body.

The Viennese coaches of this time seem to have had a very great deal of glass about them, but the Turkish coaches had none. Writing home from Adrianople in 1717, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu says:—

“Designing to go [to Sophia] incognita, I hired a Turkish coach. These voitures are not at all like ours, but much more convenient for the country, the heat being so great that glasses would be very troublesome. They are made a good deal in the manner of the Dutch coaches, having wooden lattices painted and gilded; the inside being painted with baskets and nosegays of flowers, intermixed commonly with little poetical mottoes. They are covered all over with scarlet cloth, lined with silk, and very often richly embroidered and fringed. This covering entirely hides the persons in them, but may be thrown back at pleasure, and the ladies peep through the lattices. They hold four people very conveniently, seated on cushions, but not raised.”

They were, it would seem, mere covered waggons, and, indeed, in another place Lady Mary speaks of them as such. Turkey possessed also “open gilded chariots,” but in these the women were not allowed to drive.

Russia, too, at this time possessed coaches, and we read that Peter the Great in his trans-European journey travelled with “thirty-two four-horse carriages and four six-horse waggons.” One or two particulars are forthcoming of the royal coach-house. It contained but two coaches, with four places in each, for the use of the Empress and a smaller, low-hung carriage, painted red, for the Emperor. This was replaced in winter by a small sledge. Peter, however, was not fond of his carriage. “He never,” says Waliszewski,36 “got into a coach, unless he was called upon to do honour to some distinguished guest, and then he always made use of Menshikof’s carriages. These were magnificent. Even when the favourite went out alone, he drove in a gilded fan-shaped coach, drawn by six horses, in crimson velvet trappings, with gold and silver ornaments; his arms crowned with a prince’s coronet, adorned the panels; lacqueys and running footmen in rich liveries ran before it; pages and musicians, dressed in velvet, and covered with gold embroideries, followed it. Six gentlemen attended it at each door, and an escort of dragoons completed the procession.”

It is difficult to conceive the appearance of this fan-shaped coach, but it must have been almost startlingly magnificent, just the kind of carriage for the Russian Buckingham.

In the imperial collection at Petersburg are preserved one or two Russian carriages of this period. “One,” says Bridges Adams, “is close, made of deal, stained black, mounted on four wheels, the windows of mica instead of glass, and the frames of common tin: the other is open, with a small machine behind of the shipwright-emperor’s invention—its purpose to determine the number of miles traversed on a journey. In the same collection,” he adds, “is the litter of Charles XII used at the battle of Pultowa.”

In England glass seems to have been reserved for the private coaches. For the commoner hackneys a substitute had been found. “For want of Glasses to our Coach,” wrote the inimitable Ned Ward in The London Spy, a book whose outspokenness unfortunately must, I suppose, have prevented its reprinting in modern days, “we drew up our Tin Sashes, pink’d like the bottom of a Cullender, that the Air might pass thro’ the holes, and defend us from Stifling.”

If, however, contemporary plates are singularly scarce, and the historians have little to say of the period, there is a new source of information to be tapped, at any rate in this country, in the advertisements which just now began to fill whole pages in the periodicals. Of these I may quote one or two. One deals specifically with the question of glass windows:—

“These are to give notice to all Persons that have occasions for Coach Glasses, or Glasses for Sash Windows, that they may be furnished with all sorts, at half the prices they were formerly sold for.”

Twelve inches square cost half a crown, thirty-six inches two pounds ten shillings.

Other advertisements concern the coaches themselves. In Anne’s day calashes, chaizes, both two-and four-wheeled, as well as the larger chariots—these often flamboyantly decorated—were constantly for sale.

“A very fine CHAIZE,” we read, “very well Carved, gilded and painted, and lined with Blue Velvet, and a very good HORSE for it, are to be sold together, or apart.”

“A curious 4-Wheel SHAZE, Crane Neck’d, little the worse for wearing, it is to be used with 1 or 2 Horses, and there is a fine Harness for one Horse, and a Reputable Sumpture Laopard Covering.”

Here then is mention of a four-wheeled chaise with a perch curved in front after the German fashion. Other chaises for sale had only two wheels:—

“At the Greyhound in West Smithfield is to be sold a Two-Wheeled Chaize, with a pair of Horses well match’d: It has run over a Bank and a Ditch 5 Foot High; and likewise through a deep Pit within the Ring at Hide Park, in the presence of several persons of Quality; which are very satisfied it cannot be overturn’d with fair Driving. It is to be Lett for 7s. 6d. a Day, with some Abatement for a longer Time.”

One is reminded of Sir Richard Bulkeley’s wonderful calash. Here was surely a rival. Calashes were now common, though precisely what the difference was between them and the two-wheel chaises I am unable to say. Indeed, there is some confusion also between the small chariots and the four-wheel chaises, and the words seem to have become interchangeable. Both came to resemble the coupÉ of a later day, being like a modern coach with the front part removed. Sometimes the coachman’s box was on a level with the roof, but often much lower, and sometimes altogether absent, the horses being ridden by a postilion. Probably the carriage was called a chariot when it possessed a coachman’s box, such as was used in town, and a chaise when it was absent.

It was a calash that Squire Morley of Halstead wished for, but did not obtain, in Prior’s ballad of Down-Hall, 1715.

Prior evidently liked the chaises of Holland.

Another advertisement tells of a gentleman who brought a one-horse calash to an Inn near Hyde Park Corner, took away the horse ten days later, but left his carriage “as a pawn for what was due for the same.” In a while the inn-keeper was advertising the fact that unless the owner claimed it within ten days he should sell the carriage for what it would fetch. A more curious advertisement belonging to this period may be quoted in full:—

“Lost the 26th of February, about 9 a Clock at Night, between the Angel and Crown Tavern in Threadneedle Street, and the end of Bucklers Berry, the side door of a Chariot, Painted Coffee Colour, with a Round Cypher in the Pannel, Lin’d with White Cloath embos’d with Red, having a Glass in one Frame, and White Canvas in another, with Red Strings to both Frames. Whoever hath taken it up are desir’d to bring it to Mr. Jacob’s a Coachmaker at the corner of St. Mary Ax near London Wall, where they shall receive 30s. Reward if all be brought with it; or if offer’d to be Pawn’d or Sold, desire it may be stop’d and notice given, or if already Pawn’d or Sold, their money again.”

At this time, if not before, it became customary for wealthy people to possess coaches used only when they were in mourning. So we have:—

“At Mr. Harrison’s, Coach Maker, in the Broadway, Westminster, is a Mourning Coach and Harness, never used, with a whole Fore Glass, and Two Glasses and all other Materials (the Person being deceased); also a Mourning Chariot, being little used, with all Materials likewise, and a Leather Body Coach, being very fashionable with a Coafoay Lining and 4 Glasses, and several sorts of Shazesses, at very reasonable rates.”

What these reasonable rates were does not appear, but we learn from an agreement made in 1718 between one Hodges, a job-master, and a private gentleman, the cost of hiring a complete equipage. Hodges was to maintain “a coach, chariot, and harness neat and clean, and in all manner of repair at his own charge, not including the wheels, for a consideration of five shillings and sixpence a day—this to include a pair of well-matched horses and a good, sober, honest, creditable coachman.” If extra horses were required for country work, they were to be had for half a crown the pair per day. And if the coachman should break the glass when the coach was empty, Hodges and not the private gentleman should be responsible for the damage.

From another advertisement of about the same time comes the information that the hammercloth of carriages was constantly being stolen. Ashton37 gives three such advertisements.

“Lost off a Gentleman’s Coach Box a Crimson Coffoy Hammer Cloth, with 2 yellow Laces about it.”

“Lost off a Gentleman’s Coach Box, a Blue Hammer Cloth, trimm’d with a Gold colour’d Lace that is almost turn’d yellow.”

“Lost a Red Shag Hammock Cloth, with white Silk Lace round it, embroider’d with white and blue, and 3 Bulls Heads and a Squirrel for the Coat of Arms.”

The etymology of this hammercloth, which was simply a covering over the coach-box, seems to have puzzled people considerably. Most coachbuilders consider that the box beneath the seat used to contain a hammer and other tools necessary in case of a breakdown, whence the name. The anonymous author of the coach-building articles in the Carriage Builders’ and Harness-Makers’ Art Journal scouts this idea, and suggests that it is merely a corruption of hamper-cloth—the box or chest having originally contained a hamper of provisions. The last advertisement quoted above gives hammock-cloth, which vaguely suggests suspension of a kind. It is perhaps not a very important question.

Advertisements also mention a “Curtin Coach for 6 People,” and “a Chasse marÉe Coach,”38 which was some form of covered waggon; but, unfortunately, I have not been able to discover any information about them.

The State Coaches of this time were as handsome as ever. George I, Mrs. Delaney has recorded, rode in a coach that was “covered with purple cloth; the eight horses the beautifullest creatures of their kind were cream colour”—the custom of using cream-coloured horses still obtains in the State Coach of Great Britain—“the trapping purple silk, and their manes and tails tied with purple riband.” Luttrell in his Diary for May 20th, 1707, says of a foreign coach:—

“Yesterday the Venetian Ambassadors made their public entry thro’ this citty to Somerset House in great state and splendour, their Coach of State embroidered with gold, and the richest that ever was seen in England: they had two with 8 horses, and eight with 6 horses, trimm’d very fine with ribbons, 48 footmen in blew velvet cover’d with gold lace, 24 gentlemen and pages on horseback, with feathers in their hats.”

The Venetians apparently prided themselves on a magnificent display, and four years later Swift, in one of his letters to Stella, was commenting upon their ambassador’s coach again—“the most monstrous, huge, fine, gilt thing that ever I saw,” he says of it. Every possible luxury was commandeered for these State vehicles. One of the Emperors built a coach “studded with gold” for his bride. Another’s consort rode in a carriage “covered with perfumed leather.” The wedding carriage of the first wife of the Emperor Leopold had cost 38,000 florins. But the Austrian State Imperial Coach, built in 1696, was perhaps the most gorgeous of all. Immense sums too were being spent on coaches by private individuals. Swift writes on February 6th, 1712: “Nothing has made so great a noise as one Kelson’s chariot, that cost nine hundred and thirty Pounds, the finest was ever seen. The rabble huzzaed him as much as they did Prince Eugene.” Fashion decreed six horses. “I must have Six Horses in my Coach,” says Mrs. Plotwell in the Beau’s Duel, “four are fit for those that have a Charge of Children, you and I shall never have any”; and in another of Mrs. Centlivre’s comedies, Lucinda says to Sir Toby Doubtful: “You’ll at least keep Six Horses, Sir Toby, for I wou’d not make a Tour in High Park with less for the World: for me thinks a pair looks like a Hackney.” Abroad even more display was made. “Two coaches,” wrote Lady Mary from Naples in 1740, “two running footmen, four other footmen, a gentleman usher, and two pages, are as necessary here as the attendance of a single servant is at London.”

Nor was carriage-driving confined to the gentry. Every retired tradesman appeared abroad in his coach and aped the noble, a matter which disturbed Sir Richard Steele, who in one of the Tatlers drew attention to the truly lamentable fact that you could not possibly estimate the social position of the occupant of a coach by the appearance of his equipage.

“For the better understanding of things and persons,” he writes, “in this general confusion, I have given directions to all the coachmakers and coachpainters in town, to bring me in lists of their several customers; and doubt not, but with comparing the orders of each man, in the placing of his arms on the door of his chariot, as well as the words, devices and ciphers to be fixed upon them, to make a collection which shall let us into the nature, if not the history, of mankind, more usefully than the curiosities of any medallist in Europe. It is high time,” he continues, “that I call in such coaches as are in their embellishment improper for the character of their owners. But if I find I am not obeyed herein, and think I cannot pull down those equipages already erected, I shall take upon me to prevent the growth of this evil for the future, by inquiring into the pretensions of the persons, who shall hereafter attempt to make public entries with ornaments and decorations of their own appointment. If a man, who believed he had the handsomest leg in this kingdom, should take a fancy to adorn so deserving a limb with a blue garter, he would be justly punished for offending against the Most Noble Order; and, I think, the general prostitution of equipage and retinue is as destructive to all distinction, as the impertinences of one man, if permitted, would certainly be to that illustrious fraternity.”

The temptation for display must have been great. Nothing attracted the public attention like a fine coach. In the north of Scotland, indeed, any carriage caused the profoundest astonishment.

“I was entertained,” says a contemporary writer, “with the Surprise and Amusement of the Common People when in the year 1725 a Chariot with six monstrous great Horses arrived here by way of the Sea Coast. An Elephant publicly exhibited in the Streets of London could not have excited greater admiration. One asked what the Chariot was; another, who had seen the gentlemen alight, told the first with a Sneer at his Ignorance, it was a great cart to carry people in, and such like.”

And even in Johnson’s day, when there were few coaches to be found in this part of the country, though a lighter vehicle called in old account books a cheas was sometimes used, public astonishment was great. Yet it was in the north of Scotland that military roads were constructed in 1726 and 1737—not particularly good roads, but very necessary—and the first of their kind.

Swift in Apollo, or a Problem Solved, satirised the prevailing luxury. Compared with Apollo, he says:—

But whether Jupiter allowed it or not, your fashionable dame had six horses put into her coach, and the more grooms in attendance upon her, the better for her reputation as a Person of Quality. There is a good story, by the way, of Swift and a hackney coach. It is told by Leigh Hunt in his essay on Coaches.

“He was going,” says Hunt, “one dark evening, to dine with some great man, and was accompanied by some other clergymen, to whom he gave their clue. 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 daemons. 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.”

It may be that the private coaches and chariots were rather more comfortable than the hackneys, but nothing, it seems, could equal the tortures which were inflicted upon the unfortunate passengers who were forced to ride in the public carriages.

“When our Stratford Tub,” writes Ned Ward, “by the Assistance of its Carrionly Tits of different colours, had outrun the Smoothness of the Road, and enter’d upon London-Stones, with as frightful a Rumbling as an empty Hay-Cart, our Leathern-Conveniency39 being bound in the Braces to its good Behaviour, had no more Sway than a Funeral Hearse, or a Country-Waggon, that we were jumbled about like so many Pease in a Childs-Rattle, running, at every Kennel-Jolt, a great hazard of a Dislocation: This we endured till we were brought within White-Chappel Bars, where we Lighted from our Stubborn Caravan, with our Elbows and Shoulders as Black and Blew as a Rural Joan, that had been under the Pinches of an Angry Fairy. Our weary Limbs being rather more Tir’d than Refresh’d, by the Thumps and Tosses of our ill-contriv’d Engine, as unfit to move upon a Rugged Pavement as a Gouty Sinner is to valt o’er London Bridge, with his Boots on. For my part, said I, if this be the Pleasure of Riding in a Coach thro’ London-Streets, may those that like it enjoy it, for it has loosen’d my Joynts in so short a Passage, that I shall scarce recover my former Strength this Fortnight; and, indeed, of the two, I would rather chuse to cry Mouse-Traps for a Livelihood, than be oblig’d every day to be drag’d about Town under such uneasiness; and if the Qualities Coaches are as troublesome as this, I would not be bound to do their Pennance for their Estates. You must consider, says my Friend, you have not the right Knack of Humouring the Coaches Motion; for there is as much Art in Sitting in a coach finely, as there is in riding the Great Horse; and many a younger Brother has got a good Fortune by his Genteel Stepping in and out, when he pays a Visit to her Ladyship.”

In Fleet Street, it seems, things were very bad. “The Ratling of Coaches,” says Ward, “loud as the Cataracts of Nile Rob’d me of my Hearing, and put my Head into as much disorder as the untunable Hollows of a Rural Mob at a Country Bull-Baiting.” More trouble followed later in the day.

“Now, says my Friend, I believe we are not tired with the Labours of the Day; let us therefore Dedicate the latter part purely to our Pleasure, take a Coach and go see May-Fair. Would you have me, said I, undergo the Punishment of a Coach again, when you know I was made so great a sufferer by the last, that it made my Bones rattle in my Skin, and has brought as many Pains about me, as if troubled with Rheumatism. That was a Country Coach, says he, and only fit for the Road; but London Coaches are hung more loose to prevent your being Jolted by the Roughness of the Pavement. This Argument of my Friends prevail’d upon me, to venture my Carcase a second Time to be Rock’d in a Hackney Cradle. So we took Leave of the Temple, turn’d up without Temple-Bar, and there took Coach for the General Rendezvous aforementioned.

“By the help of a great many Slashes and Hey-ups, and after as many Jolts and Jumbles, we were dragg’d to the Fair, where our Charioteer had difficulty with his fare—the gay ladies refusing to pay, but one eventually pledging her scarf and taking his number.”

It is to be remembered that at this time, as in the last century, the hackney coaches were used much in the manner of the modern omnibus. You did not necessarily have one to yourself. The same held good with regard to the post-chaises. Advertisements were constantly appearing for a “partner.”

The uneasy motion which so disturbed Ned Ward was a matter which was receiving the attention of carriage-builders, but little enough was done. Yet in England, France and Spain, quite a number of strange machines (including one which was supposed to go without horses) were invented, and had their day, and disappeared into the lumber-room of time. Two in particular, though in the main unsuccessful, deserve mention.

One, properly belonging to the seventeenth century, concerned a new steel spring, patented in 1691 by a Mr. John Green. It was thus advertised:—

“All the nobility and gentry may have the carriages of their coaches made new or the old ones altered, after this invention, at reasonable rates; and hackney and stage coachmen may have licences from the Patentees, Mr. John Green and Mr. William Dockwra, his partner, at the rate of 12d. per week, to drive the roads and streets, some of which having this week began, and may be known from the common coaches by the words patent Coach being over both doors in carved letters. These coaches are so hung as to render them easier for the passenger and less labour for the horses, the gentleman’s coaches turning in narrow streets and lanes in as little or less room than any French carriage with crane neck, and not one third of the charge. The manner of the coachman’s sitting is more convenient, and the motion like that of a sedan, being free from the tossing and jolting to which other coaches are liable over rough and broken roads, pavements or kennels. These great Conveniences (besides others) are invitation sufficient for all persons that love their own ease and would save their horses draught, to use these sort of carriages and no other, since these carriages need no alteration.”

Here, in addition to the spring, there was some kind of turning head—a question which occupied the attention of designers throughout the next century, but nothing more of Mr. John Green or of his partner was heard of, and his patent coaches found few if any purchasers.

The other contrivance was a primitive form of gear invented by one James Rowe. In 1727 this Rowe wrote a book—not, however, published until 1734—called All Sorts of Wheel Carriage, Improved. This was a small tract “wherein is plainly made to appear, that a much less than the usual Draught of Horses, etc., will be required, in Waggons, Carts, Coaches, and all other Wheel Vehicles” by the application of small “friction wheels and pulleys.” Rowe obtained a patent for his gear and apparently applied his small wheels to the axle just within the ordinary wheels, but his own coach was probably the only one ever to be so fitted. It was felt no doubt that the whole question was one of roads rather than of carriages. Improve your roads, and the discomforts of travelling would disappear.

The British stage-coaches of this time were, according to Sir Walter Scott,

“constructed principally of a dull black leather, thickly studded, by way of ornament, with black-headed nails tracing out the panels; in the upper tier of which were four oval windows, with heavy red wooden frames, and green stuff or leathern curtains. Upon the doors, also, there appeared but little of that gay blazonry which shines upon the numerous quadrigae of the present time; but there were displayed in large characters the names of the places whence the coach started, and whither it went, stated in quaint and ancient language. The vehicles themselves varied in shape. Sometimes they were like a distiller’s vat; sometimes flattened, and hung equally balanced between the immense front and back springs; in other instances they resembled a violincello case, which was past all comparison the most fashionable form; and they hung in a more genteel posture, namely, inclining on to the back springs, and giving to those who sat within the appearance of a stiff Guy Faux, uneasily seated. The roofs of the coaches, in most cases, rose into a swelling curve, which was sometimes surrounded by a high iron guard.... The coachman, and the guard, who always held his carabine ready bent, or, as we now say, cocked upon his knee, then sat together; not as at present, upon a close, compact varnished seat, but over a very long and narrow boot, which passed under a large spreading hammer cloth, hanging down on all sides, and finished with a flowing and most luxurious fringe. Behind the coach was the immense basket stretching far and wide beyond the body, to which it was attached by long iron bars or supports passing beneath it; though even these seemed scarcely equal to the enormous weight with which they were frequently loaded. They were, however, never very great favourites, although their difference of price caused them frequently to be well filled, for, as an ancient Teague observed, ‘they got in so long after the coach, that they ought to set out a day sooner, to be there at the same time. Arrah!’ continued he, ‘can’t they give it the two hind wheels, and let it go first?’ The wheels of these old carriages were large, massive, ill-formed, and usually of a red colour; and the three horses that were affixed to the whole machine—the foremost of which was helped onward by carrying a huge long-legged elf of a postillion, dressed in a cocked hat, with a large green and gold riding coat—were all so far parted from it by the great length of their traces, that it was with no little difficulty that the poor animals dragged their unwieldy burthen along the road. It groaned, and creaked, and lumbered, at every fresh tug which they gave it, as a ship, rocking or beating up, through a heavy sea, strains all her timbers with a low-moaning sound, as she drives over the contending waves.”

No wonder, said Scott, that at this time people invariably made their wills before setting out on a journey of any length. The dangers were manifold and very real.

In France the stage-coaches, or diligences, were very similar “with large bodies, having three small windows on each side and hung by leather braces on long perch carriages, with high hind wheels and low front wheels, without any driving box and fitted with large baskets, back and front for passengers or luggage; they were drawn by five horses and driven by a postillion on the off wheeler instead of the near wheeler as in England.” One, at any rate, of these diligences had springs of a kind. Another public coach in France at this time was the gondola, holding ten or twelve passengers inside, these sitting sideways with one at each end, a second attempt at a kind of omnibus. Still another public vehicle popular about this time in Paris was the coucou. Of this weird machine RamÉe says:—

“Figure a box, yellow, green, brown, red, or sky blue, open in front, having two foul benches which had formerly been stuffed, on which were placed six unfortunate voyagers. In the sides it had, right and left, one or two square openings, to give air during the day or in summer. While the interior was sufficiently open to the world, there was built an apron in front, framed in woodwork and covered with sheet iron. Upon this apron was thrown a third bench, on which were seated the driver of the coucou and two passengers who were termed lapins (rabbits).”

The coucou was regularly to be seen lumbering painfully along with its ten or a dozen passengers, its snail’s pace giving it the ironical name of vigoureux. The poorer people almost exclusively used the coucou, although a smart woman with her pet dog, or a gentleman who had been unable to find a place in the more aristocratic gondola, were occasionally to be seen in its interior sandwiched in between two peasants.

In Spain the coucou found an equivalent in the galera, which was provided with the ubiquitous basket—a low waggon it was, with its sides formed of a number of wooden spokes at a considerable distance from each other, and having no bottom save a strip of spartum on which the trunks and packages were heaped. In Spain there were several types of cart, two-or four-wheeled, which likewise plied for passenger hire. One of these, called a correo real, seems to have travelled at rather a greater pace, though with even less comfort to the unfortunate passengers than the others. A century later this correo real was described by ThÉophile Gautier, who speaks of it as “an antediluvian vehicle, of which the model could only be found in the fossil remains of Spain, immense bell-shaped wheels, with very thin spokes, considerably behind the frame, which had been painted red somewhere about the time of Isabella the Catholic; an extravagant body full of all sorts of crooked windows, and lined in the inside with small satin cushions, which may at some period have been rose-coloured, and the whole decorated with a kind of silk that was once probably of various colours.”

In 1743 the system of travelling post, which so long before as 1664 had been common in France, was introduced into England by one John Trull, an artillery officer, who obtained a patent for letting carriages for hire across country. These were the post-chaises, of which the first were two-wheeled with the door in front—in this respect being similar to the French chaises de poste, from which the idea was taken. Trull’s scheme, however, though successful in itself does not seem to have brought money to its inventor, who thirty years later died in the King’s Bench. The door of these first post-chaises “was hinged at the bottom and fell forward on to a small dasher like a gentleman’s cabriolet,” and there was a window on either side. “It was hung upon two very lofty wheels,” says Thrupp, “and long shafts for one horse, and the body was rather in front of the wheels, so that the weight on the horse’s back must have been considerable. It was suspended at first upon leather braces only, but later upon two upright or whip springs behind, and two elbow springs in front from the body to the cross-bar, which joined the shafts and carried the step.” Soon, however, these post-chaises were built with four wheels, and resembled the ordinary private chariots of the day, though without their lavish ornamentation. In less than ten years, however, a larger body was given to them, so that they came to resemble the coach rather than the smaller and slimmer chariots, while the coachman’s box was made very much higher.

The post-chaise became extraordinarily popular. The literature of the mid-eighteenth century is full of references to it. All kinds of adventures happened to people in post-chaises. They were seen in every part of the country, they could be hired here, there, and everywhere. Dr. Johnson was only one amongst thousands who loved them. “If I had no duties,” he records, “and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.” “I have tried almost every mode of travelling since I saw you,” wrote Wilkes to his daughter, “in a coach, chaise, waggon, boat, treckscuyt, traineau, sledge, etc. I know none so agreeable as my English post-chaise.”

One thinks naturally of Laurence Sterne. Both in Tristram Shandy and in the Sentimental Journey he has much to say of the post-chaises. “Something is always wrong,” he is grumbling somewhere, “in a French post-chaise, upon first setting out.... A French postillion has always to alight before he has got three hundred yards out of town.” And then, of course, there is that never-to-be-forgotten dÉsobligeante which he purchased from M. Dessein at Calais.40

“There being no travelling in France and Italy,” he recounts, “without a chaise—and nature generally prompting us to the thing we are fittest for, I walk’d out into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that kind to my purpose: an old DÉsobligeante, in the furthest corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight, so I instantly got into it.”

And there it was in that queer little carriage which would hold but one person, that Sterne wrote his famous Preface about Travellers, “though it would have been better,” he observed, when interrupted, “in a Vis-À-Vis.” The particular dÉsobligeante seems to have proved satisfactory, but for the species Sterne could not find much praise.

“In Monsieur Dessein’s coach-yard,” he says, “I saw another old tatter’d dÉsobligeante; and notwithstanding it was the exact picture of that which had hit my fancy so much in the coach-yard but an hour before, the very sight of it stirr’d up a disagreeable sensation within me now; and I thought ’twas a churlish beast into whose heart the idea could first enter, to construct such a machine; nor had I much more charity for the man who could think of using it.”

It was certainly not a very sociable carriage, but then neither was the sedan: both were very useful.

I may conclude this chapter by drawing attention to the tax upon coaches which was levied at the beginning of 1747. From the fuss that was made when such a bill was first introduced—it was temporarily abandoned—you might imagine that one of the most treasured articles of the Constitution was about to be swept away.

“It is impossible to express,” wrote a country clergyman to his bishop in a letter which deserves quotation as affording an insight into the lesser equipages used in the country at this time, “the various impressions your lordship’s letter, relating to the tax upon coaches, made here; as people imagined it a jest, or serious: As most inclined to the former, it would be too tedious to trouble you with the witticisms and conundrums it occasioned. B. said the Church was in danger; C. observed it would be like the gospel-feast inverted, that the maimed and lame being the only guests admitted there, would be the only ones excluded here.... As we have now no reason to doubt such a tax being really intended, give me leave to represent to you our thoughts of it here. My living, your Lordship knows, is under £70 per Ann., yet out of this, some years since, I made a shift to lay out six pounds on an old chariot, which, with the help of my ploughman and a pair of cart-horses, has drawn my wife, etc., half a mile to church, who, for the future, must go in a cart, or stay at home. Repairs, etc., have cost me, communibus annis, for the eleven years I have had it, about 7s. so the interest of my money, at 5 per cent, on the £6 and 7s. in repairs, is 13s. per Ann., which with tax on this my pompous luxury, will be increased to £4 13s. per Ann., almost the prime cost of setting up my Equipage. I am afraid this is not my case singly, but will be found pretty nearly so, of most of the small clergy in England. Among the laity we have several gentlemen farmers, who manage, in some degree, with the same frugality, and who, for the same reasons, are prepared to part with, or continue them according to the fate of this bill; insomuch, that I can compute that in sixteen parishes I have in my eye three times that number of coaches will be disposed of, for we look on the same sum, which is but a trifling duty on grand equipages, to amount to a prohibition on ours, which resembles them no more than a ragged coat does an embroidered suit. I shall not dwell on the quantity of glass (not to mention leather, etc.), this will bring to market, nor the future consumption of these commodities it will prevent.... To me I own it looks a little like the son eating the father.... How many single gentlemen,” he goes on to ask, after pointing out that it is the poorer married men who will suffer most, “from 2, 3, to 800l. a year, and more, have no coaches, yet keep a stable of hunters (the worst of which would purchase my equipage) and a pack of hounds, whom this duty will not affect?”

But the bill was passed, and so we must suppose that our clergyman and his farmer friends were forced to walk to church.

Some verses printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine at this time may also be quoted as reflecting the general opinion about the bill.

From this bill, those who used the one-horse chaises certainly suffered. Rusticus thereupon offered the following advice to his fellow-sufferers at the time of the next General Election:—