Carriages and carts; Coach horses; Coaching (Transportation)
His face is red, and his voice rough, by the same process of drink and
catarrh. He has a silver watch with a steel-chain, and plenty of loose
silver in his pocket, mixed with half-pence. He serves the houses he
goes by for a clock. He takes a glass at every alehouse; for thirst,
when it is dry, and for warmth when it is wet.
He likes to show the judicious reach of his whip, by twigging a dog or a
goose on the road, or children that get in the way. His tenderness to
descending old ladies is particular. He touches his hat to Mr. Smith. He
gives "the young woman" a ride, and lends her his box-coat in the rain.
His liberality in imparting his knowledge to any one that has the good
fortune to ride on the box with him is a happy mixture of deference,
conscious possession, and familiarity. His information chiefly lies in
the occupancy of houses on the road, prize-fighters, Bow Street runners,
and accidents.
He concludes that you know Dick Sams, or Old Joey, and proceeds to
relate some of the stories that relish his pot and tobacco in the
evening. If any of the four-in-hand gentry go by, he shakes his head,
and thinks they might find something better to do. His contempt for them
is founded on modesty.
He tells you that his off-hand horse is as pretty a goer as ever was,
but that Kitty--"Yeah, now there, Kitty, can't you be still? Kitty's a
devil, sir, for all you wouldn't think it." He knows that the boys on
the road admire him, and gives the horses an indifferent lash with his
whip as they go by. If you wish to know what rain and dust can do, you
should look at his old hat. There is an indescribably placid and
paternal look in the position of his corduroy knees and old top-boots on
the foot-board, with their pointed toes and never-cleaned soles. His
_beau-idéal_ of appearance is a frock-coat, with mother-o'-pearl
buttons, a striped yellow waistcoat, and a flower in his mouth.
"But all our praises why for Charles and Robert?
Rise, honest Mews, and sing the classic Bobart."
Is the quadrijugal virtue of that learned person still extant? That
Olympic and Baccalaureated charioteer?--That best educated and most
erudite of coachmen, of whom Dominie Sampson is alone worthy to speak?
That singular punning and driving commentary on the _Sunt quos curriculo
collegisse_? In short, the worthy and agreeable Mr. Bobart, Bachelor of
Arts, who drove the Oxford stage some years ago, capped verses and the
front of his hat with equal dexterity, and read Horace over his
brandy-and-water of an evening.
We had once the pleasure of being beaten by him in that capital art, he
having brought up against us an unusual number of those cross-armed
letters, as puzzling to verse-cappers as iron-cats unto cavalry, ycleped
X's; which said warfare he was pleased to call to mind in after times,
unto divers of our comrades.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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