And now, gentle reader, if the epithet means any thing, you cannot but feel disposed to good humour and indulgence: Instead of rattling you off, as was proposed at our last interview, and whirling you at the rate of twelve miles an hour, exhausted with fatigue, and half _dead_ in pursuit of _Life_, we have proceeded gently along the road, amusing ourselves by the way, rather with drawing than driving. 'Tis high time, however, we made some little progress in our journey: “Come Bob, take the reins--push on--keep moving--touch up the leader into a hand-gallop--give Snarler his head--that's it my tight one, keep out of the ruts--mind your quartering--not a gig, buggy, tandem, or tilbury, have we yet seen on the road--what an infernal place for a human being to inhabit!--curse me if I had not as lief emigrate to the back settlements of America: one might find some novelty and amusement there--I'd have the woods cleared--cut out some turnpike-roads, and, like Palmer, start the first mail”----“Stop, Tom, don't set off yet to the Illinois--here's something ahead, but what the devil it is I cant guess--why it's a barge on wheels, and drove four-in-hand.”--“Ha, ha--barge indeed, Bob, you seem to know as much about coaches as Snarler does of Back-gammon: I suppose you never see any thing in this quarter but the old heavy Bridgewater--why we have half a dozen new launches every week, and as great a variety of names, shape, size, and colour, as there are ships in the navy--we have the heavy coach, light coach, Caterpillar, and Mail--the Balloon, Comet, Fly, Dart, Regulator, Telegraph, Courier, Times, High-flyer, Hope, with as many others as would fill a list as long as my tandem-whip. What you now see is one of the _new patent safety-coaches_--you can't have an overturn if you're ever so disposed for a spree. The old city cormorants, after a gorge of mock-turtle, turn into them for a journey, and drop off in a ~~10~~nap, with as much confidence of security to their neck and limbs as if they had mounted a rocking-horse, or drop't into an arm-chair.”--“Ah! come, the scene improves, and becomes a little like Life--here's a dasher making up to the Safety--why its--no, impossible--can't be--gad it is tho'--the Dart, by all that's good! and drove by Hell-fire Dick!--there's a fellow would do honour to any box--drove the Cambridge Fly three months--pass'd every thing on the road, and because he overturned in three or four hard matches, the stupid rascals of proprietors moved him off the ground. Joe Spinum, who's at Corpus Christi, matched Dick once for 50, when he carried five inside and thirteen at top, besides heavy luggage, against the other Cambridge--never was a prettier race seen at Newmarket--Dick must have beat hollow, but a d----d fat alderman who was inside, and felt alarmed at the velocity of the vehicle, moved to the other end of the seat: this destroyed the equilibrium--over they went, into a four-feet ditch, and Joe lost his match.