History is silent as to the methods by which men were enabled to endure the tedium of journeys by the heavy coaches of the olden time. The absence of all notion of travelling faster might, indeed, be no inconsiderable aid,—an aid of which travellers are at present, for the most part, deprived; since the mail-coach passenger, the envy of the poor tenant of the carrier’s cart, feels envy, in his turn, of the privileged beings who shoot along the northern rail-road; while they, perhaps, are sighing for the time when they shall be able to breakfast at one extremity of the kingdom, and dine at the other. When once the idea of not going fast enough enters a traveller’s mind, _ennui_ is pretty sure to follow; and it may be to this circumstance that the patience of our forefathers, under their long incarceration on the road, was owing—if patience they had. Now, a traveller who is too much used to journeying to be amused, as a child is, by the mere process of travelling, is dismayed alike if there be a full number of passengers, and if there be none but himself. In the first case, there is danger of delay from the variety of deposits of persons and goods; and in the second, there is an equal danger of delay from the coachman having all his own way, and the certainty, besides, of the absence of all opportunity of shaking off the dulness of his own society. Mr. Reid, a sociable young barrister, who had never found himself at a loss on a journey, was left desolate one day last summer when he least expected it. He had taken his wife and child down to the south, in order to establish them by the sea-side for a few weeks; and he was now travelling up to town by the stage-coach, in very amusing company, as he thought, for the first stage, but presently in solitude. Supposing that his companions were going all the way, he took his time about making the most of them, and lost the opportunity. There was a sensible farmer, who pointed right and left to the sheep on the downs—green downs—retiring in long sweeps from the road; and he had much to relate of the methods of cultivation which had been pursued here, there, and everywhere,—with the Barn Field, and Rick Mead, and Pond-side Field, and Brook Hollow, and many other pretty places that he indicated. He had also stores of information on the farmer’s favourite subject of complaint—the state of the poor. He could give the history of all the well-meant attempts of my lord this, and my lady that, and colonel the other, to make employment, and institute prizes of almshouses, and induce their neighbours to lay out more on patches of land than less helpless folks would think it worth while to bestow. Meantime, a smart young lady in the opposite corner was telling her widowed chaperon why she could not abide the country, and would not be tempted to leave dear London any more,—namely, that the country was chalky, and whitened the hems of all her petticoats. The widow, in return, assured the unbelieving girl that the