LXII. A JOURNEY BY COACH. (A FRAGMENT.) A FRIEND* and myself found ourselves, one showery August afternoon, sitting at the White Horse in Piccadilly, the sole occupants of the inside of an Oxford coach, and keeping such grave faces as sickness could help us to, in resistance of the almost unbearable tendency to laugh, produced by the crowd of fruitsellers, pencil-men, pocket-book thrusters into your face, and other urgent philanthropists, who cannot conceive it possible how you can stir from London, unprovided from their especial stocks. We confess we have a regard for these men, owing to their excessive energy, and the loud ness with which they pursue the interests of their wives and families. We stand it out as long as we can; perhaps buy nothing,-out of a secret admiration of what we seem to be disliking, and a sense of maintaining an honourable contest, they with their tongues, and we with our faces, which we keep fixed on some object foreign to the matter in hand (the only way), and pretend to hold in a state of indifference, from which there is no hope. If we buy nothing, our conscience absolutely twinges us; and yet how could we more honourably treat an honourable enemy? He clearly thinks it a matter of vigour and perseverance,-a regular battle we take him at his word, and won't at all purchase. His object is to thrust his oranges into our pockets; ours, to keep our money there; his, to be loud, importunate, and successful; ours, to be still, insipidlooking, and of course successful also. We respect him so much, that we must needs maintain his respect for ourselves; and how are we to do this if we give in? He will think us weak fellows, chaps that can't resist ; so we do not care twopence for his wife and family, but entrench ourselves in a malignant benevolence towards our own. Orangery begins at home. But the only sure way is to fix your eyes on some other point, and say nothing. It is a battle won on your part by an intensity of indifference. You must not even look as if you disputed. You must fix your eyes on a shop window; or on vacancy; or on the woman who is waiting for her husband; or the bundle which the other is hugging; or the dog who has just had a kick in the mouth, and is licking it with sedentary philosophy in a corner, looking at the same time about him; or you may watch the gentleman's face who has come half an hour too soon, but is afraid to go into a house to wait. If you look at your assailants, you only increase the vociferation; if you smile, they think you half won; if you object to the price, it is all *The late Mr. Egerton Webbo. Alas! (that we should so soon, and unexpectedly, be forced to say "late!") over with you. Let your smile be internal, and your superiority immense and not to be reached. Let them say to themselves, "That fellow must be a magistrate, or an inspector of police." At length, a sudden bustle, and some creaking evidences on the part of the coach, announce that you are about to set off. Trunks lumber and "flop" over head; all the outside passengers are seated; the box and its steps feel the weight of the ascending charioteer, as the axle-trees of their cars groaned under the gods of Homer; an unknown individual touches his hat, informing you that he has " seen to the things;" hasty anxieties are expressed for the box-the portmanteau-the carpet-bag; "all's right;" a kind domestic face is taken leave of with a moist eye (don't let any but the sick, or the very masculine, know it); and off we start, rattling with ponderous dance over the stones of Piccadilly. We have never seen a description of the inside of a coach. It is generally too much occupied to be thought of, except as a collection of fellow-passengers. In the present instance we had it all to ourselves, and could reconnoitre it—nobody, in summer-time, ever thinking, it seems, of going inside, except in cases of illness, and then very seldom; particularly if it is a wet night, and the "young woman" is to be sent down cheaply to Guinea Lodge. A mail-coach, in summer-time, may be defined, a hollow box with people outside of it. For upwards of two hundred miles we had a series of coaches nearly all to our two selves, as if each of them had been a private carriage. We lounged in them, we changed quainted with every part and particle of their corners, we put our legs up, and got acaccommodation. It is a tight kind of halfsoft, half-hard thing,-is the inside of a coach; more hard than soft; not quite so convenient as it looks; more No than Yes," as the Italian said. The tight grey drugget looks compact and not uncomfortable, yet does not invite your head-ache to rest against it. The pockets seem as if they ought to contain more than they do; the pair of shoes won't go quite in. The floor has neither carpet nor straw; nor is it quite even; and the places to put things in under the seat, are apt to baffle your attempts, if the things are at all large; and you do not want them for trifles. If you put your gloves, or a few books on the seat, in a few minutes you find them gone off upon the floor. The drugget is occasionally varied with gay colours; and the windows are generally good,pulling up and down with facility. In short, there is a show of liberality, in which you speedily discern a skimping saving,—the same spirit which spoils the building of modern houses as well as coaches. The old coaches, we may be certain, were larger and more generous, though they made less pretension, and went at a snail's pace in the comparison. We like "coaching" it, for our own parts, and should have been well content to live upon the road, in those patient antiques, instead of getting on at the present rate, and being impatient to arrive at some town, where we shall perhaps be equally restless. Not that we are insensible to the pleasure of driving fast. We like that too it stirs the blood, and gives a sense of power; but everything is a little too smug and hasty at present, and business-like, as though we were to be eternally getting on, and never realizing anything but fidget and money, the means instead of the end. We are truly in a state of transition,-of currency, rather and thank Heaven, we are, and that it is transition only. Heaven forefend that the good planet should stop where it is,—at a Manchester millennium ! And we cannot take thoroughly to the modern, and we hope, transitory coachman, compared with the humbler pretensions of his predecessor. We acknowledge his improvement in some respects. He wears gloves; has cleaner linen, and an opinion of himself; and is called "Sir" by the ostlers. He gathers the reins in his hands with a sort of half-gentility, -a certain retinence and composure of bearing; and gives answers in the style of a man who is not to be too much troubled,- -a partproprietor, or, for aught we know, cornchandler, and cousin to Squire Jenks himself, who in less knowing times was called Farmer Jenks. He knows what belongs to the Diffusion of Coaches. You doubt, notwithstanding his red face, whether he could ever get in a passion and swear; till somebody bringing his authority into question, out comes the longsuppressed, natural, gin-drinking man of many weathers. Peace be to him, poor fellow! and a fit of illness that shall stop his drinking in time. After all, however, our coach was a very good coach, and the coachmen as good alsofor aught that we recollect to the contrary. We are painting from the race in general. We had the inside, as we said before, all to ourselves ; we had books, rapidity, fresh air, and one another's company. Good-natured Cowley was with us, in the shape of his delightful volume of Essays; Parnell, Shenstone, and others, not taxing the faculties overmuch, but good, chatting, inn-loving men; some Shakspeare, fit for all places, especially for one to which we were bound; a bit of Greek Anthology; some extracts from Blackwood, Fraser, Tait, and the New Monthly, chiefly consisting of delightful chat upon poets (of which more by and by); and a curious volume, little known, of miscellaneous prose by Armstrong, in which one of the best-natured men that ever lived, appears to be one of the most caustic and querulous. All these books and papers kept sliding every now and then from the seats, and set us laughing. The air was delightfully fresh and moist; the bits of black earth, spun up by the coach-wheels, danced merrily by the windows. We passed Hyde Park Corner, famous for Pope's going to school; Knightsbridge, where Steele made Savage write the pamphlet that was to pay for their dinner; and are come in sight of Kensington, and Mrs. Inchbald's privacy, a public-house. But we must here give the reader breath,— requesting his company with us next week. LXIII. A JOURNEY BY COACH. CONTINUED. "LIFE has few things better than this," said Dr. Johnson, on feeling himself settled in a coach, and rolling along the road. "The pleasure, is complete, sir," said Boswell; thinking to echo the sentiment of his illustrious friend, and leave no doubt about it. "Why, no, sir," returned the Doctor, who did not choose to be too much agreed with, Boswellically :-"you have to arrive somewhere ;—there is to be an end of the pleasure. Sir, you have a melancholy anticipation." one. Wequote from memory,-probably with little justice to what was really said; but such was the gist of it. We confess we did not think with Johnson in the present instance; for the friends we had left behind us, and the friends we were going to see, are both better things to live with, than the fact of being on the road; and our health was not good enough to render the intermediate state of existence a perfect But where the circumstances are all favourable, or the change merely good for its own sake, we do thoroughly hold with the doctor, that few things in life are better than rolling along in a coach at your ease, looking out upon novelty, and feeling lord of your place and time. And as to the melancholy of arriving somewhere, it has often struck us how unwise it is, in people not bound upon any journey's end more attractive than ordinary, to be in so much haste to reach there. People must exist somewhere; and where better (except with dear friends) than in the midst of scenes of nature, in fresh air, and in any easy state of movement? To be borne along, with no trouble, and yet without compulsion or inere passiveness, and with a sense of the power of commanding what you enjoy, is surely a pleasurable state of being, both for body and mind. Let the reader nestle himself up in a corner of the coach, with his arms folded, and thorough room for his legs, and fancy it. Perhaps he shuts his eyes, and a balmy air 70 comes breathing on the lids, while his body is carried jovially along-jolted a little, occasionally, without jolting,-wafted over the fine English roads, now dashing at the hill, now going gentlier down it; spinning along a perfect level, or gently dipping into a bit of an undulation, and so up again, just enough to bend his chin a little closer, and remind him how smoothly the carriage is hung. Verily an English stage coach is a fine thing, and they do not "order these matters better in France." What we miss of our lively neighbours, when the coach has strangers in it, is their sociability; but when a couple of friends have the inside to themselves, as was the case in our instance, what more can be desired? No wonder the Spanish gentleman, when he saw such an equipage at his door, with its handsome horses instead of mules, its compact and comfortable self, its nice leather reins (not ropes, as they have in the south), its respectful and respectable coachman, and the royal arms to boot on the panels, thought he had been provided by Government with the carriage of one of its nobles; and found it especially difficult to be convinced to the contrary, when he was seated in all its luxury, and smoothly scudding for London at the rate of ten miles an hour. But to resume our setting out.-Since writing our last, we had reason to believe that we had been misinformed respecting the site of Mrs. Inchbald's sequestered retirement, the public-house; and, on consulting her Memoirs by Mr. Boaden, we find that it was in the other Kensington road,-the one from Oxford street, at No. 1, St. George's Terrace, near the chapel where Sterne lies. We have been told, that somebody asking her how she came to lodge at a public-house, she said, with great apparent simplicity, perhaps to mystify the inquirer, "They had very good beer there." We take this opportunity of observing, that when we speak jestingly of this abode, we do it out of no disrespect to the memory of this excellent woman and admirable writer. She was an original in conduct as well as in writing, but all in a true and superior, not affected or mean spirit. She lived at a public-house because it was cheap, and had a good prospect; and she lived cheaply, because she gave her money away to poor friends and relations. She would pass a winter without a fire, the want of which she sometimes felt so as to make her "cry with cold," in order to be able to afford one to an ailing sister. true Christian, and noble creature! 0 love of superiority was full of heart! AnThy gels, if angels could suffer, might so suffer for us, and be above us; and what wanting in our pity, we should supply with was love. Luckily we do not lose sight of Mrs. Inchbald on this road. If her public-house was not where we supposed it, her last lodginghouses were at Kensington, and her last home, on this side heaven. But we shall come there presently. We have passed Knightsbridge, once a terrible lonely place, of cut-throat reputationplished Spanish acquaintance of ours, on his and the "Cannon Brewery" (which an accombook, as presenting a curious specimen of coming into England, noted in his pocketEnglish parlance, supposing that the casting of cannon was called brewing them), and the barracks, where tall dragoons are seen discoursing with little women; and have come Kensington Gore, with Hyde Park again. into Hyde Park is associated with the reviews and the duels of latter generations; KensingSunday visiters; and the palace and suburb, ton Gardens, with their Court beauties and with the Court itself, or some connexion of royalty, and with Court wits and others. Gray and here Arbuthnot; lodged at one time, and came here to try to get rid of his last sickness; Swift. gardens, and had forgotten the church and its We have been thinking of Courts and gay graves; and a shadow suddenly falls upon us choly portion of one of the most painful parts in approaching it, reminding us of a melanof our life. But a small angel sits smiling at infancy; and we are rebuked by its better us through it, with eyes earnest beyond its knowledge, and resume our patience, willingly admitting a new relief that has been lately afforded us, by learning that Mrs. Inchbald of innocence both received and imparted a lies in the same spot. It seems as if any kind grace, from its juxta-position with such a woman. For her genius and fame are, of course, not what we are thinking of on the occasion; it is the fitness of the greater angel for sleeping by the side of the less. Mrs. resided there, or in the neighbourhood, during Inchbald was very fond of Kensington. She the last ten or twelve years of her life; first (as above mentioned); then at No. 4, Earl'sat Turnham-green; then in St. George's-row place, opposite Holland House; then in Leonard's-place; then in Sloane-street (at No. 148); and, lastly, in Kensington House, a healthiness, its retirement, its trees and proCatholic boarding-establishment, where she died. spects, its Catholic accommodations (for she She was fond of Kensington for its was a liberal believer of that church)-but not least, we suspect, for a reason which Mr. tioned-namely, the interment in Kensington Boaden's interesting biography has not menWarren, for whom, in her thirty-eighth year, church-yard, of the eminent physician, Dr. by genius, beauty, and refusals of other marand in the twelfth year of a widowhood graced riages, she entertained a secret affection, so young and genuine, that she would walk up and down Sackville-street, where he lived, purely to get a glimpse of the light in his window. Her heart was so excellent, and accustomed to live on aspirations so noble, that we have not the least doubt this was one of her great ties to Kensington, and that she looked forward, with something of an angelical delight to the hour when she should repose in the earth, near the friend whose abode she could not partake while living. LXIV. A JOURNEY BY COACH. CONTINUED. Holland House and its memories-Formal new buildings in the roads near London-New public-houses inferior to the old ones-Hammersmith and its legend, &c.-Turnham Green-Passages from Gay and the Mayor of Garrat-Brentford-Cavaliers and Puritans-Sion HouseOsterley Park-A halt at an Inn-door. THE traveller, in passing Holland House, must try to get as long a glimpse of it as he We beg the reader to pardon a digression can; and if he has any fancy, and is a reader, longer than we shall usually indulge in, for the old house will glow to him like a painted the sake of the feelings of gratitude and ad- window. Visions of wits and beauties will miration just re-excited in us by a perusal of flash upon his eyes, from the times of Elizathe life of this extraordinary woman, the beth and James the First, down to this present authoress of some of the most amusing comedy | November 1835, with more, we trust, to and pathetic narrative in the language: a come. Perhaps there has not been a set of reformer, abhorring violence; a candid con- men, eminent in their day, who, for the most fessor of her own faults, not in a pick-thank part, have not visited at that house. It was and deprecating style, but honest and heart- built by the Cope family in 1607; then posfelt (for they hurt her craving for sympa- sessed by the Earl of Holland, one of the fathy); an admirable kinswoman and friend vourites of Charles the First's wife, Henrietta nevertheless, most admirable, as we have Maria; then by the Commonwealth, whose just seen; the creator of the characters of General, Fairfax, made it his head-quarters on "Dorriforth" and "Miss Milman ;" and the one occasion; then by the Holland family writer of a book (Nature and Art') which again, through whom, by his marriage with the a woman, worthy to have been her friend, Countess of Warwick and Holland, it became put during his childhood into the hands the residence of Addison, who died there; of the writer of these pages: to the no then by a descendant of the family, who sold small influence, he believes, of opinions which it to Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, and he afterwards aspired to advocate, however it has since remained in the possession of his imperfectly he may have proved his right to successors. Here Charles Fox spent his childdo so. hood with a good-natured father, who helped him to remain something of a child all his life, Dr. Warren, a man as good as he was intelligent, is in the recollection of many. We the luckiest thing that can happen to a great have heard, from a lady who remembers him, | man. Here, in all probability, visited the that he was a very gentlemanly man, with all Sucklings and Lady Carlisles, of the time of the wise suavity of the genuine physician-Charles the First ;-here the Buckinghams of not of a healthy complexion, but with very fine eyes. And we learn from another, that his searching and refined look, his professional skill, his power to attach affection, and, alas! his delicacy of health, are hereditary in the name. Truly, love keeps one a long while lingering at the door; and we shall never get on with our journey at this rate. We must begin again next week, and move faster! the two Charleses, with all the wits of those days;-here certainly, Steele and his fellow associates of Addison;-here Walpole, and Hanbury Williams, and the beauties of the Richmond and other families;-here the Jeffreys, Burkes and Sheridans ;-and here the Broughams, Byrons, Rogerses, Campbells, Thomas Moores, and all the other Whig genius of the present age, attracted by the congenial abilities and the flowing hospitality of the biographer of Lope de Vega,-a true nephew of Charles Fox,- a nobleman gracing, and helping to secure his order, because he sympathises with all ranks. We never pass Holland House (and we pass it often, and often look up at it from its gate) without wishing a blessing and long life to the man, whose possession of so fair a place it is not in the nature of the poorest honest man to grudge him*. And the house is worth looking at, too, for its own sake. It is a curious specimen of the *While revising this sheet for the press, we have to lament the death of this most genial and excellent man, the delight of all who knew him, and the friend of the world. style of architecture in the reign of Elizabeth and James; and, to our feelings, not less comfortable-looking than curious-for it gives one the idea of a multitude of snug, straggling rooms, situated in all sorts of corners and staircases; and there is a noble library, be sure ; besides plenty of family and other pictures. (as the philanthropist said) light on those who do not endeavour (like proper reformers, as we are) to bring the new beautifully out of the old, and thus to retain what is good, while they are making things better ! But we are anticipating, for we are not to halt yet; we have not got far enough. We pass the lane turning to Acton, on the right hand, and to Fulham on the left, and are in Hammersmith, famous for its ghost, and its suspension bridge, and the abode of Richardson. Here is also a convent of Nuns, a rare sight in England, especially so near the metropolis. They are of the order of Benedictines; nay, we believe, of the branch of Visitandines, -the same that were so scandalized at the worldly knowledge of their famous parrot, VertVert, yet could not find it in their good hearts to detest him. (See Œuvres de Gresset, or the translations in various collections of poetry,— or in Fraser's Magazine' a few months back.) We have met with a legend somewhere, respecting the origin of the name of Hammersmith which relates, that two gigantic sisters residing there built the churches at Putney and Fulham, and that they threw over to one another, as they wanted it, across the river, a of obvious solution puts an end even to the most improbable fiction. Hammersmith was evidently the abode of some country blacksmith in old time, and probably consisted of this solitary shop, the first that was met with on the high-road going from London. Adieu to snug, old, picturesque Holland House, with its hundred visions from the windows; for we must push on. The worst of the roads near London is, that for a long while you seem to be neither in London nor in the country. You think you have got into the latter, when some long formal row of houses, some "Prospect Place," or "Paradise Row," -or, worse than that, some spick and span new, yellow-brick set, convinces you to the contrary; and the Paradise Row perhaps has no gardens, and the Prospect Place no prospect. Paradise Row was doubtless Paradise once; but the Adam and Eve have been driven out by the taste of bricklaying; and Prospect Place had a "view," till "Smith's Terrace," or some such interloper, came sidling in front of it with forty new tenements, and impudently deprived it of the beatific vision of its cow-field. What we particularly hate in the new buildings about London, is the re-built or furbished-stupendous hammer. It is a pity when a name up public-houses. They think themselves very fine, with their new, flat faces, and their golden letters on blue grounds; and the people have doubtless got a lift in the world, and are mighty "respectable-like, ' ," and serious, and disagreeable; or else, they are at their wit's end to pay for the finery, and drink and swear worse than Tom Dykes over the way, whose wife died a month after she had had a battle with him. Perhaps, to mend the matter, they cut down the tree in front. The place then becomes all as flat as need be, and worth nobody's looking at, except a bricklayer's. Nobody wishes to stop at it except the mere drinker, or the mere man of business; and he is for getting on as fast as possible, as he well may; for what is the use of his stopping anywhere? For our parts, give us the good, old, snug, picturesque public-house, which had, and in remoter places still has, the great tree before it, with a bench, and the old swinging sign, that sings or creaks in the winds on winter-nights, and the landlord, not above nor below his respectable calling,-hearty as the punch-bowl in his window, and clean as his sanded floor. We have touched upon the interior of such a house in the first article of our journey; and we never pass its outside without thinking what a picture it makes, and how well it would look in a picture. But what has the "Jolly Gardener," or the "Shepherd and Shepherdess, or the " Bull," "Robin Hood,' or the "Hand and Flower," or the Angel," or the "Maiden's Head," to do with a great, flat-faced, commercial, dusty road, and rows of new houses? May a devil's blessing ΟΙ The person, whoever he was, that played the part of a ghost in this village some years back, and was the occasion of an innocent man's being shot, has probably repented of his foolish prank. The length and bitterness of his regret, by this time, will have earned him a right to forgive himself. We have mentioned that Mrs. Inchbald once resided at Turnham Green, the next place from Hammersmith. It is famous for the blunder attributed to Goldsmith about the bad peas. He had heard the joke about taking them from Hammersmith "to turn 'em green ;` and is said, in repeating it, to have substituted the words "make 'em green” for “turn 'em." On coming from Kensington, you catch views of Harrow on the Hill, where Garth lies; and betwixt Hammersmith and Brentford, you look on the right towards Acton, where Lady Wortley Montagu lived, and Ealing, where her cousin Fielding once resided. Gay has mentioned this road, in his epistle to the Earl of Burlington, entitled a 'Journey to Exeter.' "While you, my lord, bid stately piles ascend, (Burlington House, in Piccadilly, which we have passed, was one of his building) Or in your Chiswick bowers enjoy your friend, (Chiswick lies a mile out of the road to the left, as you enter Turnham Green) |