"On one side of this end of the room was the door of a closet, wherein stood the strong beer and the wine, which never came thence but in single glasses, that being the rule of the house strictly observed, for he never exceeded in drink or permitted it. On the other side was the door into an old chapel, not used for devotion; the pulpit, as the safest place, was never wanting of a cold chine of beef, venison pasty, gammon of bacon, or great apple-pie, with thick crust, extremely baked. "His table cost him not much, though it was good to eat at; his sports supplied all but beef and mutton, except Fridays, when he had the best salt fish (as well as other fish) he could get, and that was the day his neighbours of best quality most visited him. He never wanted a London Pudding, and always sang it in with 'My past lies therein--a.' "He drank a glass of wine or two at meals, very often syrup of gilliflower in his sack, and had always a tun glass without feet by his side, holding a pint of small beer, which he often stirred with rosemary. He was well natured, but soon angry; he lived to be a hundred; never lost his eye-sight, but always read and wrote without spectacles, and got on horseback without help. Until past fourscore he rode to the death of a stag as well as any." CHAPTER V. COACH _versus_ RAIL--DESCRIPTION OF A COACH JOURNEY FROM LONDON TO BATH--DIFFERENCES OF OPINION--THE COACH DINNER--LUXURIOUS LIVING--SNUG HÔTELLERIES--ENGLISH _versus_ FOREIGN COOKING. CHAPTER V. "Every medal has its reverse." Many persons may be found who denounce coaching as an abomination; while others declare that railway travelling is most fatal only not to the lives, but to the comforts of Her Majesty's subjects. I pass over the dangers of the rail, and will lay before my readers the opinions expressed by the two contending parties. One declares that, among the many improvements of which this age has been productive--and many and vast have they been--that of travelling unquestionably bears the bell. The very word, however, has now become a misnomer. It is no longer travelling; it is flying over the country, luxuriously and triumphantly, at a pace that equals the hurricane. The rapidity with which travellers are now conveyed by steam over the length and breadth of the country is a social advantage which, for manifold purposes, cannot be too much appreciated. Some may remember, and have not those suffered from, the old slow and sure system? "This racks the joints, This fires the veins, That every labouring sinew strains,"