“For a day and night journey the agony was, on two occasions, so intense that, although then in my youth, and hardy enough, I was obliged to get off the coach and sleep a night on the road; by which I don’t mean under the hedge, but in one of those fine old (and highly expensive) inns that then were to be found at more or less regular intervals along the great highways. Posting, generally with four horses--a highly extravagant way of travelling, but one in great favour with those who could afford it--maintained correspondingly high charges at all these houses of entertainment. It was all very well to rhapsodise over the climbing roses, the fragrant honeysuckle and the odorous jessamine that wreathed the portals of the wayside inn in summer, or to become eloquent over the roaring fire, at whose ruddy blaze you toasted your feet in winter, but you had to pay--and to pay pretty heavily--for these luxuries. I will suppose that the traveller stopped for dinner, which, if left to the landlady, generally consisted of eels, or other fresh-water fish, dressed in a variety of ways, roast fowl, lamb or mutton cutlets, bread, cheese, and celery, for which a charge of six or seven shillings was made. If the meal took place after dark, there was an additional item of two shillings or half a crown for wax lights. Then, ‘for the good of the house’ and your own certain discomfort, there was a bottle of fine crusted port (probably two days in bottle) seven shillings; or a bottle of fiery sherry, just drawn from the wood, six shillings. To all these charges must be added the waiter’s fee of one shilling or eighteenpence a head. ‘Sleeping on the road’ absolved you from some of these costs, but it was expensive in its own way. It involved tea or supper, chambermaid and boots, as well as bed and breakfast. Breakfast, with ham and eggs, three shillings; tea, with a few slices of thin bread-and-butter, eighteenpence or two shillings; a soda and brandy, eighteenpence. “Once, in the depth of winter, I left Bramham Park, the seat of George Lane-Fox, on the Great North Road, to proceed to London, with a journey before me of 190 miles. I was well wrapped up, with enough straw round my feet to conceal a covey of partridges; still, after going about 37 miles, I felt myself so benumbed that I began to think whether it would be wise to go on, or get off and sacrifice my fare to London. Upon reaching Bawtry I felt more comfortable, the guard at Doncaster having lent me a tarpaulin lined with sheepskin; so I resolutely determined to brave the pitiless storm of snow, now whitening the ground.