commented on at the time, because it enabled
his imperial Majesty to brave a shower of rain
without needing lacqueys to hold a canopy or
covering over his head. In the next following
century, Germany, with its army of princes and
electors, was especially rich in dazzling gilded
coaches. France was not so fortunate; Henri
Quatre had only one coach; and one day he
wrote, " I cannot come to you to-day, because
my wife is using my coach."

There is a wordy war as to the first coach,
properly so called, seen in England. Stow says
that Walter Rippon made a coach for the Earl of
Rutland, in fifteen 'fifty-five, being the first ever
seen in this country; and that nine years afterwards,
he made the first " hollow turning coach"
(whatever that may mean) for Queen Mary,
"with pillars and arches." Another account
states that the first coach in England was brought
over from the Netherlands by William Boonen,
in the seventh year of Elizabeth's reign.
Possibly Boonen was the first importer, but
Rippon the first English maker. One of Rippon's
coaches had " a chariot throne with four
pillars behind, to bear a crown imperial on the
top, and before two low pillars, whereon stood
a lion and a dragon, the supporters of the arms
of England." This coach had no coach-box for
the driver; and indeed such an appendage seems
to have been of more recent introduction.
About this time the French coaches had a
canopy supported by ornamental pillars, and
stuff or leather movable curtains all round. A
curious record is in existence of the cost of a
dashing turn-out in Elizabeth's time. In
the household book of the Kytson family, dated
fifteen 'seventy-three, there is a sum of 34l. 14s.
set down for a " coche and furniture;" 2s. 6d.
for painting the family arms upon it; and
11l. 9s. 9d. for horses to draw it. The
English ambassador to Scotland, two years
before the close of the century, astonished the
gude folk of Edinburgh by bringing his coach
with him. Five years later, when James the
Sixth of Scotland became James the First of
England, he rode on horseback from the
northern capital to the southern; but his queen
"came to Sanct Geill's Kirk, well convoyit
with coches, herself and the prince in her awin
coche, guhilk came with her out of Denmarke,
and the English gentlewomen in the rest of
the coches." While King Jamie was on the
English throne, Taylor the Water Poet heartily
abused all street vehicles, inasmuch as they
lessened his trade— that of a waterman. He
characterised the coach as "a close hypocrite;
for it hath a cover for knavery, and
curtains to vaile and shadow any wickedness.
Besides, like a perpetual cheater, it wears two
bootes, and no spurs; sometimes having two
pair of legs to one boote, and oftentimes (against
nature) it makes faire ladies weare the boote;
and if you note, they are carried back to back,
like people surprised by pyrats, to be tyed in
that miserable manner, and thrown overboard
into the sea. Moreover, it makes people imitate
sea-crabs, in being drawn sideways as they are
when they sit in the boot of the coach; and it is
a dangerous kind of carriage for the Commonwealth,
if it be considered." This allusion to
persons sitting back to back, and others sitting
sideways, points to modes of construction not
much adopted in later years. Early in Charles
the First's reign there was a satirical account
of a battle between the sedan and the coach,
with a beer cart as umpire; each trying to prove
that the other was not well adapted to the streets
of London. The umpire's decision is worthy of
all note: " Coach and sedan, you both shall
remove and ever give way to beer cart, wherever
you shall meet him either in city or country,
as your ancient and elder brother"— which he
unquestionably was. About the middle of the
same century, the Empress of Germany had a
glass-panelled coach, through which she and her
subjects could see each other; it was called the
"imperial glass coach." Germany could produce
such a vehicle better in those days than
England, owing to the greater development of its
glass manufacture. Peter the Great's carriage,
about the time of our George the First, was a
close coach, made of deal stained black, with
four wheels, and windows of mica or talc.

How the construction of pleasure carriages
improved during the last century, as exhibited
in the "state," "dress," "town," and "family"
carriages of royalty and nobility, it is not here
to tell; nor of the later advancements which
have rendered English carriages the best in the
world. The progeny is a numerous one, blessed
with names derived from all sorts of etymological
sources. Of these the Great Exhibition
of eighteen hundred and fifty-one contained
about a hundred and forty specimens of constructive
skill in the form of coaches and
other road vehicles; and the jury who reported
on them remarked on the entire absence of
those old symbols of luxury— family travelling
carriages. They were surprised at the deficiency,
but they regarded it " as accounted for
in a great measure by the demand for carriages
of this description having been so materially
diminished by the general introduction of railways."
The jury praised the coachmakers
for the strength rather than the tasteful design
of the exhibited carriages. " Comparing," they
said, "the state of the art of carriage-building
in former not very distant times with that
of the present, we consider the principles
of building in many respects greatly improved,
and particularly with reference to lightness and
a due regard to strength, which is evident in
carriages of British make, and especially displayed
in those contributed by the United
States." But: "We regret to remark, under
the head of elegance of design, that we find in
the exhibition of carriages a great deficiency.
While we admit, therefore, that there has been
considerable progress in the principles of carriage-building,
we are of opinion that the style has
been injured by injudicious innovation."

Eleven years later, when the International
Exhibition called for another series of Jury
Reports, the coachmakers came in for their
share of comment. If the cab-owners would
attend to what the jury said on this occasion