And here it may not be out of place to describe a journey by coach, say from London to Bath, on a cold raw Winter's day. I speak of the time when the old, crawling, creaking, rattling, six inside vehicle had not given way to the fast four-horse light coach. Often have I travelled by one of these wretched conveyances to Newbury, when I was at a private tutor's at Donnington Grove. As lucifer-matches had not then been introduced, the only method of getting a light was by striking a flint against a steel in a tinder-box. Your candle lit, a hasty toilet made, you descended, if at an hotel, into a coffee-room, miserably lit, and reeking with the odour of gin, brandy, and punch. At that early hour, breakfast was out of the question. Then there was the uncertainty whether the hackney-coach you had ordered over night would be forthcoming; if it did arrive, you reached the "White Horse Cellar" or "Gloucester" Coffee-House by a little before six, where a glass of rum and milk, or some "early purl," might be had. If an inside passenger, you were subjected to being "cribb'd, cabin'd, confined" in a small compass, without head or knee room, for nearly sixteen hours. If an outsider, there was the discomfort of cold winds, drifting snow, heavy rain, and dripping umbrellas. Then the dinners on the road--twenty minutes allowed, with its scalding soup stained warm water, its tough steaks, its Scotch collops, "_liquidis profusus odoribus_," its underdone boiled leg of mutton, its potatoes, hot without and hard within. Then the scramble for a nook by the fire to dry the soaked coat, cloak, or hat; then the change of coachmen, all of whom expected to be remembered; then the fees to guard and porters. Let anyone picture to himself or herself the miseries of such a journey, and be thankful that they have all nearly vanished under the mighty power of steam. Having given the opinions of the advocates of the rail, I turn to those of the road, who thus describe the delights of a journey in a fast coach. They suppose a fine Spring morning, when you find yourself seated by the side of a pleasant companion, behind four blood horses, the roads sufficiently watered by an April shower to lay the dust; the hedgerows shooting forth--buds unfolding, flowers bursting out; the birds carolling cheerfully, as if to welcome the return of Spring; the sun smiling upon the snug cottages, the picturesque village churches, the small hamlets, the peaceful homesteads, the neatly-kept gardens, whose early produce were beginning to bloom--such were the _agréments_ of the road.