In 1875 the "Age" was put upon the road by Mr. Stewart Freeman, and ran in the season up to and including 1880, in which year it was doubled. Captain Blyth had the "Defiance" on the road to Brighton this year by the circuitous route of Tunbridge Wells. In 1881 Mr. Freeman's coach was absent from the road, but Edwin Fownes put the "Age" on, late in the season. In the following year Mr. Freeman's coach ran, doubled again, and single in 1883. It was again absent in 1884-5-6, in which last year it ran to Windsor; but it reappeared on the Brighton Road in 1887 as the "Comet," and in the winter of that year was continued by Captain Beckett, who had Selby and Fownes as whips. In 1888 Mr. Freeman ran in partnership with Colonel Stracey-Clitherow, Lord Wiltshire, and Mr. Hugh M'Calmont, and in 1889 became partner in an undertaking to run the coach doubled. The two "Comets" therefore served the road in this season supported by two additional subscribers, the Honourable H. Sandys and Mr. Randolph Wemyss. [Illustration: THE "AGE," 1852, CROSSING HAM COMMON. _From an engraving after C. Cooper Henderson._] [Sidenote: JIM SELBY] In 1888 the "Old Times," forsaking the Oatlands Park drive, had appeared on the Brighton Road as a rival to the "Comet," and continued throughout the winter months, until Selby met his death in that winter. The "Comet" ran single in the winter season of 1889-90, and in April was again doubled for the summer, running single in 1891-2-3, when Mr. Freeman relinquished it. Mention has already been made of the "Old Times," which made such a fleeting appearance on this road; but justice was not done to it, or to Selby, in that incidental allusion. They require a niche to themselves in the history of the revival--a niche to which shall be appended this poetic excerpt: Here's the "Old Times," it's one of the best, Which no coaching man will deny, Fifty miles down the road with a jolly good load, Between London and Brighton each day. Beckett, M'Adam, and Dickey, the driver, are there, Of old Jim's presence every one is aware, They are all nailing good sorts, And go in for all sports, So we'll all go a-coaching to-day. It is poetry whose like we do not often meet. Tennyson himself never attempted to capture such heights of rhyme. He could, and did, rhyme "poet" with "know it," but he never drove such a Cockney team as "deny" and "to-dy" to water at the Pierian springs. VII "Carriages without horses shall go," is the "prophecy" attributed to that mythical fifteenth century pythoness, Mother Shipton; really the _ex post facto_ forgery of Charles Hindley, the second-hand bookseller, in 1862. It should not be difficult, on such terms, to earn the reputation of a seer.