roar of the humming London life, as I lie
upon the sloping grass banks watching my
float and line gliding down my favourite
stream. In the evening I return to the hotel
or inn, and, having nothing better to do, I
always spend an hour in the tap or smoking-
room, listening to the conversation of the
wise men of the village. Many times a year
—more than I care to name— for the last
quarter of a century, have I idled away my
leisure hours in this manner; with various
fortune as to sport, which grieves me little,
but with uniform fortune as to health and
amusement, profitably mixed with food for
reflection. When I first went to the place,
the town was in the full pride, profit, and
glory of the old coaching days. From fifteen
to twenty highly-painted, well-horsed rolling
stages passed through from an early hour of
the morning until a late hour of the night.
Then the principal hotel was a sight to see.
Horses standing outside in the road, porters
rushing to and fro with luggage, ostlers busy
with bright and complicated harness;
passengers, both male and female, alighting from
the roof of the vehicles by the assistance of
ladders and the obliging guard; buxom
landlady and neat chambermaids standing ready
to give a reception to the guests; a clean,
whitewashed archway floored with bright red
bricks, and roofed with hanging hams, sirloins
of beef, legs of mutton, and haunches of venison,
while beyond were the extensive stables
as prim as a Dutch farm-house, with an old
carved wooden gallery running all round the
yard. Then the commercial traveller was a
steady, deliberative, time-taking pioneer of
trade, who rode his own horse, or drove his
own vehicle, and not the bustling, high-
pressure, watch-consulting, Bradshaw-turning,
Manchester maniac who is left to us now.
He was known as a bagman, and gloried in
the appellation, without having the ambition
to be regarded as a commercial gentleman.
The coffee-room was then kept sacred for
those persons of the superior classes who
availed themselves of the luxuries and
conveniences of stage-coach travelling, without
going the length of indulging in private
apartments. To obtain the coveted favour of
a box-seat was an affair of many weeks'
booking, and many shillings' fee. He who
got it by dint of patience, forethought,
and capital, was an object of envy to his
fellow- voyagers the journey through. He
was a comfortable man, because (in the
winter time) in addition to his own shawls
and rugs, he had the extra protection of the
coachman's leather apron. He was a happy
man, because he was the confidential repository
of the vast stores of information about
horse-craft, poured into his ear by the ever-
communicative driver; and more because he
was occasionally entrusted with the ribbons
or reins during certain rests, or the temporary
vacation of the throne of government by the
lawful monarch. Turnpike-keepers were
ready, obedient, and respectful; ostlers at
roadside houses, where the horses had their
mouths cleaned out with a wisp of hay and a
pail of water, were positively bent nearly
double with admiration bordering upon
veneration— hoping, but almost fearing, that they
might one day be called upon to fill a position
of such imposing state and heavy responsibility
as that of the driver of a four-horse
coach through a first-class line of country.
When the loaded vehicle rolled away after a
change of horses, with four prancing animals
rather fresh just put to, any bystander might
have heard some such conversation as this
between the two men who led the relieved
steeds, smoking and panting, up the yard:

"Muster Simmons, he know a thing or
two, eh, Bill?"

"As well as 'ere and 'ere a one, Jack."

"There ain't the meare on this road as
can get over him, Bill, when he's a-minded?"

"Not exactly, Jack."

Sometimes, if the coachman happened to
be a new, an illiberal, and consequently an
unpopular hand, the remarks were not so
full of unbounded admiration.

"Why he's no more use with four on 'em,
Bill, than my little finger!"

"No more he ain't, Jack; I'll bring a boy
as 'll lick him any day with's own team on's
own ground!"

"Any boy!—any hinfant, Jack!"

This was something like the existing state
of things when I first began to visit my nameless
country town. I soon became an inmate
of some little importance at the principal
hotel where I took up my quarters, being
promoted from the numerical insignificance
which attaches to a single lodger, who is at
the same time a private individual with no
rank or title, in a huge provincial caravanserai
where they make up fifty beds. I was
at last known and addressed by my name,
and even allowed, when I felt so disposed, to
pass half an hour in agreeable conversation,
with the landlady's daughters in the little
parlour behind the bar. I have no fault to
find with those young ladies, on the contrary,
I could record much in their praise; but I
am sorry to have to damage my reputation
for gallantry by owning that I found more
amusement in the tobacco-clouded atmosphere
of the smoking-room, than I did in
their society, delightful as it was. At this
period the first rumours of railway enterprise
began to dawn upon the world, and also,
alter a decent interval, upon my nameless
country town. I am not about to raise the
veil, and expose to ridicule such humble,
lowly, and simple-hearted, though a little
ignorant and obstinate fry, as a village
barber, two village drapers, several important
agriculturists, and the usual nightly visitors
of a country hotel tap, by making a farcical
record of their opinions upon the—at that
time— incomprehensible wonder of the age.
They spoke according to their lights, which