[355] About the same period that our Hackney Coaches became in use, a sort of Carriage arose at Paris under the name of a Fiacre. I mention them to account for the term, which in the common French Dictionaries is simply rendered a Hackney Coach.
[356] Voc. Fiacre. See also Menage, Orig. de la Langue Françoise.
[357] English Martyrology. Moreri's Dictionary. Collyer. St. Fiacre was the Patron Saint of persons afflicted with the Piles. "The Troops of Henry V. are said to have pillaged the Chapel of the Highland Saint; who, in revenge, assisted his Countrymen in the French Service to defeat the English at Bauge; and afterwards afflicted Henry with the Piles, of which he died. This Prince complained, that he was not only plagued by the living Scots, but even persecuted by those who were dead." Smollett's Travels, Letter IV.
N. B. There was a Prelate of the name Fiachre in Ireland, whose death is remembered there on the 8th of February. He lived about the same time. [British Piety, in the Supplement]. He was not a Saint.
[358] It is a little singular, that neither Cotgrave himself, in his Dictionary, first published in 1611, nor his Editor, James Howell, either in his Edition of 1650, or in that of 1673, take any notice of the word Fiacre in the sense before us.
[359] Anderson on Commerce, II. 20.
[360] Rymer, tom. XIX. p. 721.
[361] He was knighted, together with fourteen other Gentlemen of the Band, by King James, in Scotland, 1617; as appears from a Catalogue of Knights, published by J. P. Esq. 1660.
[362] Rymer, tom. XIX. p. 572.
[363] Mr. Reed, the Editor of the Old Plays [2d Edit. 1780], from the above account, must therefore certainly be in an error, when he supposes that Sedan Chairs were the introduction of the Duke of Buckingham, about the year 1619. [See Note to vol. V. p. 475.] Sedan—mentioned by the name only in the Life of Dr. Thomas Fuller, 1661, 18mo. p. 57.