"I hate these French himportations and hinventions, the homnibusses!" exclaims the gate-keeper, "they're a regular nuisance."
Then might be seen approaching a pony-phaeton, with a duedecimo postilion, and a pair of long-tailed Arabians, containing two of England's loveliest daughters—the turnpike-man is lost in admiration. Quickly follows the light Whitechapel cart with a fast trotter, "surrounding objects rendered invisible by extreme welocity," as the owner declares, who by his bulldog and his costume shows he belonged to the once royally-patronised prize-ring. But see! a "drag" approaches; it is the perfection of neatness, one of Adams's[1] best—body yellow, slightly picked out with black; under carriage black; two servants in plain liveries behind four spicy nags—three greys and a chestnut—each ready to leap through his collar, put together with skill and working beautifully. The driver is evidently a first-rate artist, a perfect master of the science. See how well he has his team in hand! He is every inch a coachman. Our turnpike-man brightens up and, doffing his hat respectfully, exclaims,
[1] Adams, now Hooper, Victoria Street.
"Now, that's what I like to see—a gentleman patronising the road! He's a right regular and right honourable trump, and no mistake!"
And no mistake was there, for the driver was John Warde. A fashionable equestrian now rides by,
"With heel insidious by the side
Provokes the caper which he seems to chide;"
and a "galloping snob" of Rotten Row, since immortalised in song, follows him. Half a dozen spring-vans decorated with flags and laurels, containing men, women, and children, barrels of beer, and baskets of provisions, are the East-End Benevolent Society, on their road to Bushey Park to enjoy a picnic under its stately avenues of horse-chestnuts.
"It's a poor heart that never rejoices!" says the man at the gate, smirking at the females as he gives the ticket, and helping himself to a handful of apples from a neighbouring barrow-woman's stall, which he throws into the laps of the delighted juveniles. A key bugle, playing "Love's young dream," announces the approach of another "drag;" but what a contrast to the one I have described! It is painted green, picked out with red, evidently an old stage-coach metamorphosed; for a close observer might perceive the words "Chatham and Rochester," partly defaced, and painted over with a fancy crest and motto; the driver sitting, like a journeyman tailor on his board, with one servant behind, with a gaudy livery and gold-laced hat; the horses, one blind, two kickers and a bolter, evidently bent on having a way of their own. "Regular Brummagem," exclaims the man of "no trust." "All is not gold that glitters."
Next comes a youth on an animal long in the neck and high in the bone, accoutred with a pair of saddle-bags, his twanging horn announcing him to be the suburban postman, the