The Venetians apparently prided themselves on a magnificent display, and four years later Swift, in one of his letters to Stella, was commenting upon their ambassador’s coach again—“the most monstrous, huge, fine, gilt thing that ever I saw,” he says of it. Every possible luxury was commandeered for these State vehicles. One of the Emperors built a coach “studded with gold” for his bride. Another’s consort rode in a carriage “covered with perfumed leather.” The wedding carriage of the first wife of the Emperor Leopold had cost 38,000 florins. But the Austrian State Imperial Coach, built in 1696, was perhaps the most gorgeous of all. Immense sums too were being spent on coaches by private individuals. Swift writes on February 6th, 1712: “Nothing has made so great a noise as one Kelson’s chariot, that cost nine hundred and thirty Pounds, the finest was ever seen. The rabble huzzaed him as much as they did Prince Eugene.” Fashion decreed six horses. “I must have Six Horses in my Coach,” says Mrs. Plotwell in the _Beau’s Duel_, “four are fit for those that have a Charge of Children, you and I shall never have any”; and in another of Mrs. Centlivre’s comedies, Lucinda says to Sir Toby Doubtful: “You’ll at least keep Six Horses, Sir Toby, for I wou’d not make a Tour in High Park with less for the World: for me thinks a pair looks like a Hackney.” Abroad even more display was made. “Two coaches,” wrote Lady Mary from Naples in 1740, “two running footmen, four other footmen, a gentleman usher, and two pages, are as necessary here as the attendance of a single servant is at London.” Nor was carriage-driving confined to the gentry. Every retired tradesman appeared abroad in his coach and aped the noble, a matter which disturbed Sir Richard Steele, who in one of the _Tatlers_ drew attention to the truly lamentable fact that you could not possibly estimate the social position of the occupant of a coach by the appearance of his equipage.