the cold, or choking with filthy fogs, they are often brought into their inns by torchlight, when it is too late to sit up and get a supper, and next morning they are forced into the coach so early that they cannot get breakfast? What addition is it to a man’s health or business to ride all day with strangers--oftentimes sick, ancient, diseased persons, or young children crying,--all whose humors he is obliged to put up with, and is often poisoned with their nasty scents, and crippled with the crowd of boxes and bundles? Is it for a man’s health to be laid fast in the foul ways and forced to wade up to the knees in mire, afterwards sitting in the cold till teams of horses can be sent to pull the coach out? Is it for their health to travel in rotten coaches, and to have their tackle, or perch, or axle-tree, broken, and then to wait three or four hours (sometimes half a day), and afterwards to travel all night to make good their stage?” The well-known scene from the Inn Yard, Rochester, in _Henry IV._ illustrates all this, as also the scarcity of clocks, and the necessity the inhabitants were under to use any means at hand for ascertaining the time of day or night. The discomfort the picture presents will remind any one of travelling in America where the train has to be met at night, or early in the morning, and is detained probably by snow or an accident. The disjointed conversation and weariness are wonderfully portrayed. _1st Carrier_ (with a lantern). Heigh ho! An’t be not four by the day, I’ll be hanged; Charles’s wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed. What, Ostler, etc. The discontent and querulousness are well shown; the carrier says-- [Illustration: TEWKESBURY.] “I prythee, Tom, beat Cut’s saddle, put a few flocks in the point; the poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.” His companion, who joins them, says-- “This house is turned upside down since Robin Ostler died.” and the first carrier, who seems all through to be of a more lively turn, adds, “Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him.”