It was to the Bull that old Hobson, the Cambridge carrier of such great renown, drove on his regular journeys, between 1570 and 1631. Hobson was the precursor, the grand original, of all the Pickfords and Carter Patersons of this crowded age, and lives immortal, though his body be long resolved to dust, as the originator of a proverb. That is immortality indeed! No deed of chivalry, no great achievement in the arts of peace and war, shall so surely render your name imperishable as the linking of it with some proverb or popular saying. Who has not heard of "Hobson's Choice"? Have you never been confronted with that "take it or leave it" offer yourself? For, in truth, Hobson's Choice is no choice at all; and is, and ever was, "that or none." The saying arose from the livery-stable business carried on by Thomas Hobson at Cambridge, in addition to his carrying trade. He is, indeed, rightly or wrongly, said to have been the first who made a business of letting out saddle-horses. His practice, invariably followed, was to refuse to allow any horse in his stables to be taken out of its proper turn. "That or none" was his unfailing formula, when the Cambridge students, eager to pick and choose, would have selected their own fancy in horseflesh. Every customer was thus served alike, without favour. Hobson's fame, instead of flickering out, has endured. Many versified about him at his death, but one of the best rhymed descriptions of his stable practice was written in 1734, a hundred and three years later, by Charles Waterton, as a translation from the Latin of Vincent Bourne-- "In his long stable, Cambridge, you are told, Hobson kept studs for hire in days of old, On this condition only--that the horse Nearest the door should start the first on course, Then next to him, or none: so that each beast Might have its turn of labour and of rest; This granted, no one yet, in college dress, Was ever known this compact to transgress. Next to the door--next to the work; say, why Should such a law, so just, be doomed to die? Remember then this compact to restore, And let it govern as it did before. This done, O happy Cambridge! you will see, Your Hobson's stud just as it ought to be." IV