A journey is pleasant and animating. There is something in rapidity of movement quite inspiring. It cheers the dejected spirits. It enlivens the stupid, and clears away the vapours from the stagnant soul. It decidedly brightens the wits. Hence we find that jockies are so very keen and knowing; the rapidity with which they are carried along is the cause of their shrewdness. Hackney-coachmen are stupid people, and waggoners are stupider still. As slow movements are unfavourable to the wits, so are they also depressing to the spirits. And we think that it was an additional punishment to the rogues that were formerly hung at Tyburn, that they were condemned to be slowly dragged through the streets. For though no man is ever in a great hurry to be hanged, yet, to have been galloped over the stones at a good round pace would not have been half so dismal as to crawl along at a snail’s pace. Furthermore it may be remarked, that whenever gentlemen ride or drive furiously, it is a symptom that they are either melancholy or stupid, and that by worrying horses to death they are endeavouring to cheer their own spirits or to brighten their wits. And once more it is also worthy of remark, how prodigiously stupid some men are, seeing that though they frequently travel most rapidly, and ride and drive most furiously, and leap over hedges and ditches, floundering, galloping, roaring, tearing and shrieking after hares and foxes; yet, after all, they remain as stupid as hackney-coachmen, who have never moved more rapidly than at the rate of five miles in an hour. This paragraph may be omitted in the reading if the reader thinks it too profound. The rapidity of movement produced an agreeable effect on the travellers of whom we are speaking. For Miss Glossop was in remarkably high spirits, and the colonel was so animated as to talk incessantly for the first five minutes of the journey, and, when he had finished, Miss Glossop talked incessantly all the rest of the way. There is something so peculiarly pathetic in the phrase, “Ah! little did he think,” &c., that we cannot pass by the suitable occasion here afforded for the introduction of such phraseology. Though by the way it is not perhaps any great addition to a calamity that a man does not long beforehand anticipate it, and thereby suffer from anticipation more pain perhaps than he endures from the reality. To proceed however with our pathetics.