The "slow-coach" era was, absurdly enough, that of the "flying machines," and in that era, with the year 1667, the coaching history of the Bath Road may be said to begin, when some greatly daring person issued a bill announcing that a "flying machine" would make the journey. It is not to be supposed that this was some emulator of Icarus or predecessor of the ambitious folks who for the last hundred years, more or less, have been trying to navigate the air with balloons or mechanical flying machines. Not at all. This was simply the figurative language employed to convey to those whom it might concern the wonderful feat that was to be attempted ("God permitting," as the advertiser was careful to add), of travelling by road from the "Bell Savage," on Ludgate Hill, to Bath in three days. But here is the announcement:-- "FLYING MACHINE. "All those desirous to pass from London to Bath, or any other Place on their Road, let them repair to the 'Bell Savage' on Ludgate Hill in London, and the 'White Lion' at Bath, at both which places they may be received in a Stage Coach every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which performs the Whole Journey in Three Days (if God permit), and sets forth at five o'clock in the morning. "Passengers to pay One Pound five Shillings each, who are allowed to carry fourteen Pounds Weight--for all above to pay three-halfpence per Pound." The rush of fashionables to take the waters, and see and be seen, had obviously not then commenced, since one crawling "flying machine" sufficed to accommodate the traffic; and it was not until thirty-six years later that it did begin, when Queen Anne (who, alas! is dead) resorted to "the Bath" for the benefit of the gout. What says Pope? "Great Anna, whom Three Realms obey, Does sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tay." If she had taken tea more consistently and drank less port, she would have been just as great and not so gouty--and Bath would have remained in that semi-obscurity in which it had long languished. No crowds of fashionables, no truckling statesmen, no wits, would have hastened down the road and peopled it so brilliantly had not Anne's big toe twinged with the torments of the damned; and it seems likely enough that this book would never have been written. Under the circumstances, therefore, the most appropriate toast for the author and the Mayor and Corporation of Bath to honour is that favourite old one, "High Church, High Farming, and Old Port for Ever," especially the last, "coupling with it," as they used to say before the custom of giving toasts died out, the honoured memory of Queen Anne.