The English “Diligence,” as originally built and run upon the roads, was nothing more nor less than a light coach, to hold three inside passengers only, facing in the direction the coach travelled. It, indeed, greatly resembled, if even it was not identical in every particular with, the post-chaises of that time, themselves built to hold three persons, and by that measure of accommodation helping to prove every day and upon roads innumerable the truth of the old adage which declares that “Two’s company; three’s none.” If, in fact, we come to the conclusion that post-chaises were sometimes used as “Diligences” and on other occasions as post-chaises, we shall only be giving the proprietors of coaches and chaises their due credit of being clever business men, suiting their stock to the needs of the hour. Between the appearance of the Shrewsbury “Diligence” and the opening of the nineteenth century, “Diligences” abounded. The first mail-coach was a “Diligence.” It is not to be supposed that they were all fast; and indeed, so early did the impudent slow coaches assume the title, in order to deceive the public, that it soon became a synonym for laziness and unpunctuality, and so far were they in many cases from being light coaches carrying only three passengers, that references to them in the literature of a hundred years ago mention as many as six, or even eight persons. The word “diligence” in some subtle manner conveys a very true idea of these coaches. There is in it something soothing and trustworthy. In some vague way it radiates a calm atmosphere of plodding virtue and slow-going innocence, to which your dashing but breakneck “Tally-ho’s!” and “Comets” are entirely strange. The “mind’s eye, Horatio,” pictures in the progress of a Diligence a patient toiling against difficulties, rewarded in the end by the happy issue of an arrival at one’s inn, weary perhaps with long hours of travel, but still sound in body; an ending not always so comfortable when travelling by the swift “Tally-ho’s” and “Comets” aforesaid. Then, too, when “Diligence” became shortened into “Dilly,” as it very soon was, the title grew in a sense poetic. The “Derby Dilly,” which, faithful among the faithless, would appear to have remained really and truly a Diligence, has in fact been celebrated in verse by no less an one than Canning, in the lines contributed by him to the _Loves of the Triangles_:-- So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourne, glides The Derby Dilly, carrying[F] three insides. One in each corner sits and lolls at ease, With folded arms, propt back, and outstretched knees; While the press’d Bodkin, pinch’d and squeezed to death, Sweats in the mid-most place, and scolds, and pants for breath.