[Illustration: “_Phaetona, or Modern Female Taste_,” 1776] [Illustration: “_Sir Gregory Gig_” (_From a Print by Bunbury_, 1782)] A phaeton built for a lady is shown in a print published in 1776, called _Phaetona; or Modern Female Taste_. Here the carriage has a very small body, hung very high on large wheels, the undercarriage being abnormally long in consequence. The two horses which draw it are very undersized—another peculiarity possibly demanded by contemporary fashion. Two years later the scandalous _Town and Country Magazine_ published a short and probably true tale called _The Rival Phaetons_, which shows to what lengths, or, rather, what heights the Bucks of the time would go. “Lord M——,” it runs, “emulous of shining in the most elevated sphere, first drove a phaeton seven feet from the ground: Sir John L[ade] immediately made an addition of a supernumerary travelling case to his, and raised it six inches higher. Lord M—— applied immediately to his coachmaker in Liquor-pond-street for two travelling cases, with which he speedily drove about the streets for the entertainment of the public. Sir John L[ade] was stung to the quick; and Lord M—— ’s round hat was now a mere pigmy to his. His Lordship, happy at rival inventions, immediately added two more horses to his triumphal car, and drove four for expedition, from Grosvenor Square to Gray’s-inn-lane. ‘Now, my Lad,’ said he, ‘I have you;’ but how vain are the boastings of mankind? The knight appeared the very next day with a phaeton and six in Holborn. ‘Zounds,’ said his lordship, ‘this is too much! what shall I do?—how can I match my four with two more? No credit at my banker’s—in arrears with my horse-dealer—I am at my wit’s end. John, I shall not take an airing in Smithfield to-day; I’ll give my horses some rest—they were hard worked over the stones yesterday.’ Here the contest now lies—its importance must be obvious to every beholder—his lordship has not slept these three nights, and it is imagined he will at length be obliged to take the hint from Colman’s prologue to the Suicide, and preposterous as it may appear, add a fifth wheel to his phaeton. Sir John is greatly elated, and may literally be said to be in very high spirits upon his temporary triumph.”