A number of smaller proprietors accounted, between them, for many other coaches. Robert Gray, once established at the “Belle Sauvage,” left that place in 1807 and settled at the “Bolt-in-Tun,” a house still standing in Fleet Street, and now known as the “Bolt-in-Tun” London and North-Western Railway Receiving Office. He sent out twenty-five coaches daily, almost exclusively down the southern and western roads, among them the Portsmouth and the Hastings mails, the latter a pair-horse concern. William Gilbert, of the “Blossoms” inn, Laurence Lane, Cheapside, had also a pair-horse mail--the “Brighton”--the “Tantivy,” Birmingham coach, and a fast night coach to Manchester, the “Peveril of the Peak.” Seventeen other coaches left his yard. Joseph Hearn, proprietor of the “King’s Arms,” Snow Hill, was monarch among the slow-coaches, of which he had twenty-two. Among them were the Bicester “Regulator,” the Boston “Perseverance,” and the Leicester and Market Harborough “Convenience”--names that do not spell speed. Even his Aylesbury “Despatch” was a slow affair, reaching that town in six hours, at the rate of six and a half miles an hour. Many great coach-proprietors were established in the chief provincial towns. Bretherton, of Liverpool, described by Chaplin as “an exceedingly opulent man,” Wetherald, at Manchester, Teather, of Carlisle, Waddell, at Birmingham, are names that stand forth prominently. The cross-country rivalry between these men was quite as bitter as that which raged among the Londoners, and, although with the lapse of time the exact explanation of the following extraordinary epitaph on a coach-proprietor of Bolton, Lancashire, cannot be given, it is doubtless to be found in one of these business feuds:-- “Sacred to the Memory of Frederic Webb, Coach Proprietor, of the firm of Webb, Houlden, & Co., of Bolton, who departed this life the 9th December, 1825, aged 23 years. Not being able to combat the malevolence of his enemies, who sought his destruction, he was taken prematurely from an affectionate loving wife and infant child, to deplore the loss of a good husband, whose worth was unknown, and who died _an honest man_.” The inference intended to be drawn was obviously that the others were not honest men; but, honest or not, they are all gone to their account, and the world has forgotten them and their contentions. Only the stray historian of these things comes upon their infrequent footmarks, and wonders greatly at their elemental ferocity. CHAPTER XI THE AMATEURS Those men ascend to lofty state, And Phœbus’ self do emulate, Who drive the dusty roads along Amid the plaudits of the throng. When round the whirling wheels do go, They all the joys of gods do know. See the Olympian dust arise That gives them kindred with the skies! HORACE, Book I., Ode 1.