[349] I must here stop a moment to relate an Anecdote of the late Right Honourable Arthur Onslow, when Speaker of the House of Commons, whose ideas of travelling did not exceed the expedition of a pair of horses tugging his own lumbering State Coach. King George II. died on Saturday morning early, October 25, 1760. The Duke of Devonshire (then at Chatsworth) was Lord Chamberlain; and the Duke of Rutland (then at Belvoir Castle) was Lord Steward. Expresses were dispatched to these great Officers, among others, immediately; and the Duke of Devonshire arrived in Town on the Monday evening, though the distance was 150 miles. Tuesday and Wednesday came, but without the Lord Steward, to the utter astonishment of the Speaker, who knew that his distance from the Metropolis was not so great as that of the Duke of Devonshire, who had arrived on the Monday. "But I am told," cried he, "that his Grace of Devonshire travels at a prodigious rate; not less than _50 miles a day_!" Such was the prejudice of ideas, confirmed by long habitude, in a man who never extended his journeys further than his Seat in Surrey, a few miles from London; and in Parliament time did little more than oscillate between his Town House and the House of Commons.--It was a misconception on the part of the Duke of Rutland, who understood that the King of Prussia was dead, and not King George II. I mention the circumstance, only to shew the ignorance of some parts of mankind, when taken out of their routine.--The Duke of Devonshire at that time usually ran to or from Chatsworth in about 18 or 20 hours. It cannot be any matter of surprize, after so luxurious a conveyance had found its way into the Royal Establishment, that it should be adopted by others who could support the expence, when not curbed by sumptuary laws; and we have accordingly seen, that Coaches prevailed much, early in the Reign of King James; but Hackney Coaches, which are professedly the Subject of this Memoir, waited till luxury had made larger strides among us, and till private Coaches came to market at second hand. HACKNEY COACH. There having always been an imitative luxury in mankind, whereby the inferior orders might approximate the superior; so those that could not maintain a Coach _de die in diem_ contrived a means of having the use of one _de horâ in horam_. Hence arose our occasional Vehicles called Hackney Coaches.