This pleasant feature is attributed to the benevolence of an ancient Cambridge worthy, Thomas Hobson, who dwelt here from the reign of Henry the Eighth to that of Charles the First. By trade he was a "carrier," a profession which at that date included not merely the transport of goods but the provision of locomotion for passengers--then almost wholly equestrian. Thus Hobson not only himself travelled regularly to and from London with his stage-waggon, but kept a large stable of horses, not fewer than "forty good cattle," ready for hire--even supplying his customers with boots and whips for their journey. But he was very autocratic in the matter, and would never allow any steed to be chosen except in accordance with his will. "This or none" he would say to any hirer who dared to remonstrate. And his business was so prosperous that he could afford to say it, and thus give rise to the still current expression "Hobson's Choice." He rose to be Mayor of Cambridge, and his portrait still hangs in the Guildhall. Finally when he died, at the age of eighty-six, in 1630, he gained the honour of a serio-comic epitaph from Milton, then a student of Christ's College, "on the University Carrier who sickened in the time of his Vacancy, on being forbid to go to London by reason of the Plague." "Here lieth one who did most truly prove That he could never die while he could move; So hung his destiny, never to rot While he might still jog on and keep his trot. * * * * * Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death, And too much breathing put him out of breath; Nor were it contradiction to affirm Too long Vacation hastened on his Term. * * * * * But had his doings lasted as they were He had been an immortal carrier."