posts, drays, etc., etc. Still, not a word was uttered by the artist, though by this time he had scrambled in front, till, after a devil of a mistake in turning into the Hay-market, he touched my arm very civilly, with a ‘Pull up, if you please, sir, by that empty coal-cart.’ I did so--at least, as well as I could--and found, to my utter horror, that it was for the purpose of his requesting the grinning blackamoors that belonged to it _to lend him some six or seven of their sacks, to take the drag home_; ‘for,’ said he, ‘I am sure the gentleman won’t take it up to the Gloucester Coffee House _a coach_.’” CHAPTER XII END OF THE COACHING AGE “This is the patent age of inventions.”--_Byron._ In 1789, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, of Shrewsbury, in writing his poem, the _Loves of the Plants_, penned a most remarkably accurate prophecy, comparable with Mother Shipton’s earlier “carriages without horses shall go.” He wrote:-- Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar Drag the slow barge, or urge the rapid car; Or on wide waving wings expanded bear The flying chariot through the realms of air. Fair crews, triumphant, smiling from above, Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move; Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd, And armies shrink beneath the rushing cloud. The first part of this prophecy was fulfilled in the period between 1823 and 1833, when steam-carriages--the motor-cars of that age--had a brief popularity. Before railways successfully assailed the coaches, horsed vehicles had faced the inventions of a number of ingenious persons who wrestled with that problem of steam traction on common roads which had attracted Murdock in 1781. Trevithick took it up in 1800, and others followed; but it was not until 1823 that the subject began greatly to interest engineers. At that period, however, Hancock, Ogle, Church, Gurney, Summers, Squire, Maceroni, Hills and Scott-Russell plunged into that troubled sea of invention. Chief among these, from the standpoint of results achieved, were Mr. (afterwards Sir) Goldsworthy Gurney, Walter Hancock, and Colonel Maceroni. Gurney as early as 1827 had patented and tried a steam-carriage on the road. The boiler, it was explained for the benefit of nervous people, was perfectly safe. Even if it were to burst, being “constructed on philosophical principles,” no one could be hurt. On July 28th, 1829, he ran one of his inventions on the Bath Road. This was what he termed a “steam-tractor,” used as an engine to draw an ordinary barouche. Unfortunately for Gurney, he and his party reached Melksham on the annual fair-day, and a hostile crowd of rustics not only surrounded the steam-carriage, shouting “Down with machinery!” but stoned the engine, the carriage, and Gurney and his friends, with such effect that the machinery was disabled and several of the party very seriously injured.