And the two coachmen, with my Ambler bare,
And my three women; we will live, i’ faith,
The example of the town, and govern it.
I’ll lead the fashion still.”
Contemporary references to coaches, however, are but scarce. The most important of these is Taylor’s own The World runnes on Wheeles: or, Oddes betwixt Carts and Coaches, an amusing pamphlet written in prose and not in verse, because the author, as he says, was lame at the time of its composition, and because beyond the three words, broach, Roach, and encroach, he could find no suitable rhymes. Encroach, however, he thinks might have done, for that word, as he explains in his dedication to various companies likely to suffer from the importation of the coach, “best befits it, for I think never such an impudent, proud Intruder or Encroacher came into the world as a Coach is; for it hath driven many honest Families out of their Houses, many Knights to Beggers, Corporations to poverty, Almesdeedes to all misdeedes, Hospitality to extortion, Plenty to famine, Humility to pride, Compassion to oppression, and all Earthly goodnes to an utter confusion.” To the cart he does not object, but for the “hyred Hackney-hell-carts” he cannot find sufficient abuse. His arguments in favour of carts as against coaches are certainly novel, if not entirely convincing as coming from a waterman well used to live passengers himself.
“And as necessities and things,” he says, “whose commodious uses cannot be wanted, are to be respected before Toyes and trifles (whose beginning is Folly, continuance Pride, and whose End is Ruine) I say as necessity is to be preferred before superfluity, so is the Cart before the Coach; For Stones, Timber, Corne, Wine, Beere, or any thing that wants life, there is a necessity they should be carried, because they are dead things and cannot go on foot, which necessity the honest Cart doth supply: But the Coach, like a superfluous bable, or uncharitable Miser, doth seldom or never carry or help any dead or helplesse thing; but on the contrary, it helps those that can helpe themselves ... and carries men and women, who are able to goe or run; Ergo, the Cart is necessary, and the Coach superfluous.”
In fact, the coach, according to poor Taylor, is directly responsible for every calamity from which the country has suffered since its introduction. Leather has become dearer, the horses in their traces are being prostituted, and there is a “universal decay of the best ash-trees.”
“A Wheele-wright,” he continues, “or a maker of Carts, is an ancient, a profitable and a Trade, which by no meanes can be wanted: yet so poore it is, that scarce the best amongst them can hardly ever attaine to better than a Calves skin fate, or a piece of beefe and Carret rootes to dinner on a Sunday; nor scarcely any of them is ever mounted to any Office above the degree of a Scavenger, or a Tything-man at the most. On the contrary, your Coachmakers trade is the most gaine-fullest about the Towne, they are apparelled in Sattens and Velvets, and Masters of their Parish, Vestry-men, who fare like the Emperors Heliogabalus or Sardanapalus, seldome without their Mackroones, Parmisants, Jellies and Kickshawes, with baked Swannes, Pasties hot, or cold red Deere Pyes, which they have fro their Debtor Worships in the Country: neither are these Coaches onely thus cumbersome by their Rumbling and Rutting, as they are by their standing still, and damming up the streetes and lanes, as the Blacke Friers, and divers other places can witnes, and against Coachmakers doores the streets are so pestered and clogg’d with them, that neither man, horse or cart can passe for them; in so much as my Lord Maior is highly to bee commended for his care in their restraint, sending in February last, many of them to the Courtes for their carelessnesse herein.”
In another work of Taylor’s, The Thiefe, there is a passage of equal interest:—