"Nor did this addition of two horses, by Buckingham, grow higher than a little murmur. For in the late Queen's time (Elizabeth), there were no coaches, and the First Lord had but two horses; the rest crept in by degrees, as men at first ventured to sea. And every new thing the people disaffect, they stumble at; sometimes at the action of the parties, which rises like a little cloud, but soon vanishes.
"So after, when Buckingham came to be carried in a chair upon men's shoulders, the clamour and noise of it was so extravagant that the people would rail on him in the streets, loathing that men should be brought to as servile a condition as horses; so irksome is every little new impression that breaks an old custom, and rubs and grates against the public humour; but when time had made those chairs common, every minion used them; so that that which gave at first so much scandal was the means to convey those privately to such places, where they might give much more. Just like long hair, at one time described as abominable—another time approved of as beautiful."
CHAPTER XVIII.
ANCIENT AND MODERN VEHICLES—PRACTICAL JOKES IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE—FRENCH COACHES—DILIGENCES—THE MALLE-POSTE—CARRIAGES IN THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV.—PORTE FLAMBEAUX—QUARRELS BETWEEN RIVAL COACHMEN—AN ENGLISH STAGE-COACH IN FRANCE—CONCLUSION.
CHAPTER XVIII.