The modest and natural greatness with which he used to say "Yait" to his horses, and then turn round with his rosy gills, and an eye like a fish, and give out the required verse, can never pass away from us, as long as verses or horses run. Of the hackney-coach we cannot make as short work as many persons like to make of it in reality. Perhaps it is partly a sense of the contempt it undergoes, which induces us to endeavour to make the best of it. But it has its merits, as we shall show presently. In the account of its demerits we have been anticipated by a new, and we are sorry to say a very good, poetess, of the name of Lucy V---- L----, who has favoured us with a sight of a manuscript poem, in which they are related with great nicety and sensitiveness. _Reader._ What, sir, sorry to say that a lady is a good poetess? _Indicator._ Only inasmuch, madam, as the lady gives such authority to the anti-social view of this subject, and will not agree with us as to the beatitude of the hackney-coach.--But hold:--upon turning to the manuscript again, we find that the objections are put into the mouth of a dandy courtier. This makes a great difference. The hackney resumes all which it had lost in the good graces of the fair authoress. The only wonder is, how the courtier could talk so well. Here is the passage:-- "Eban, untempted by the Pastry-cooks (Of Pastry he got store within the Palace), With hasty steps, wrapp'd cloak, and solemn looks, Incognito upon his errand sallies; His smelling-bottle ready for the alleys; He pass'd the Hurdy-gurdies with disdain, Vowing he'd have them sent on board the galleys: Just as he made his vow, it 'gan to rain, Therefore he call'd a coach, and bade it drive amain. 'I'll pull the string,' said he, and further said, 'Polluted Jarvey! Ah, thou filthy hack! Whose strings of life are all dried up and dead, Whose linsey-wolsey lining hangs all slack, Whose rug is straw, whose wholeness is a crack; And evermore thy steps go clatter-clitter; Whose glass once up can never be got back, Who prov'st, with jolting arguments and bitter, That 'tis of vile no-use to travel in a litter. 'Thou inconvenience! thou hungry crop For all corn! thou snail creeper to and fro, Who while thou goest ever seem'st to stop, And fiddle-faddle standest while you go; I' the morning, freighted with a weight of woe, Unto some Lazar-house thou journiest, And in the evening tak'st a double row Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest, Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west.