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with sorrow, and Winter shouts aloud from his palace of storms, that "man was made to mourn. Art then, where nature is deficient, holds out her protecting hand. Spring and Summer, that need not her assistance, she leaves to their own delights; but Autumn and Winter, that throw themselves as it were on her bounty, she renders delightful by the association of thought and intellect.

THE COACHMAN:

A Sketch.

The Coachman's eye, in a fine phrenzy rolling,

Doth glance from right to left, from left to right;
And as imagination bodies forth

The distant vehicle, the dexterous Jehu
Keeps his own side, and gives the passer-by
A nod of gratulation or contempt.

THERE is something in the nature of a Stagecoachman, that smacks, like his own whip, of conscious importance. He is the elect of the road on which he travels, the illustrious, imitated of thousands. Talk of the King indeed! the King even, on his own high-way, is but "cakes and gingerbread" to the Jehu. For him John Boots whistles welcome-not so much through the goodness of his disposition, as through his teeth-and the publican waxes honest in his gin; for him, Betsey the pretty bar-maid displays the symmetry of a well-turned ankle, and the landlady speaks volumes in a squint.

Survey him as he bowls along the road, fenced in coats numerous as the seven bull-hides of Ajax. Listen to the untutored melody of his voice, as he preaches the word of exhortation to his tits, and enforces his doctrine with the whip. Hark! already he is entering a village-the horn sounds-the leaders rattle along the street, and out rush the neighbourhood to bid him welcome. Observe his importance to some he gives a grim nod, to others a smile of recognition, but thrice happy is he who is honored with "Go it, Jemmy." Beatified James! thou hast lived eternity in a moment. "Felix, heu, nimium felix, tua si bona nôris!"

In the nature of his vocation the Coachman bears no indistinct resemblance to the Poet. The one gives the rein to his horses, the other to his imagination; and when either run wild, the consequences are equally hazardous. The poet drives his steed along the high road to Parnassus; the coachman, more terrestrial in his calling, rattles them along the king's high-way. The poet is the child of feeling, ditto the coachman. The one feels what he writes, the other what he drives-the one gets drunk with inspiration, the other with gin-and finally, the one gives spur to his Pegasus, the other to his leaders.

Independently of these poetical associations, our hero is illustrious from his connexion with classical

lore. Pelops was a coachman, and has been immortalized, for his ability to drive at the rate of fourteen miles an hour, by the first of Grecian bards. The history of his ivory arm is nothing more than a metaphorical illustration of the merits of his whip-hand. He fractured it, in driving for a wager against King Ænomaus, a brother whip; but it was so well set by Esculapius, the first surgeon and accoucheur of his day, that popular ignorance, unable to account for the cure, ascribed it to Ceres. Hippolytus, the amiable Greek dandy, Hippolytus, with whom Diana herself was detected in a faux pas, was another notorious coachman and kept the most fashionable curricle of his day. I might quote divers other instances which, as Valpy's Grammar expresses it, "a familiarity with the best writers will easily suggest" but there would be no end to my essay, for in good sooth "hills peep o'er hills and Alps on Alps arise," when I attempt to enumerate the charioteers whom in my school-days I have been taught to reverence.

But in addition to such classical advantages, the coachman is celebrated for the morality with which his name is associated. "All the world's a stage," says Shakspeare; and Time may be considered as the Jehu who rattles it along the high-road of life to eternity. To reflective minds this association will appear obvious, and in his more serious mo

ments, the philosopher will love to consider a journey to Bath, as a type of his journey to eternity. And now that I am on the subject of eternity, let me shed a tear for thee who hast already finished thy course, illustrious Hell-fire Dick, or, if too familiarly I invoke thy shade, Pandæmonium Richard. Thou wert the Shakspeare of coachmen, the Lucifer or leading star of Cambridge. Grateful was the hour when, as the college bells rung for evening prayers, I encountered thy sainted form in stables of which Augæas might be vain. Triumphant was the moment when under thy superintending kindness I bowled along the course to Newmarket, and symphonious the voice of thy whip, as it smacked sweet music along the gay-decked Trumpington road. But thou art gone, sulphureous Richard, where Numa and Ancus have gone before thee, while melancholy remembrance can alone exclaim "Virgilium vidi.”

"My Muse turn from him, turn we to survey" another instance of the importance of the coachman, in the tender affections with which his vocation is connected. He is the winged Mercury of love, the Cupid of Valentine's day, the legal conveyancer of reciprocal esteem from friend to friend. He alone can " speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul," at the sensible pace of eight miles an hour, (including stoppages,) and bring the

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