But to return to your pony-carriage. If you buy one, take especial care that it "runs light;" as it is not only a relief to the feelings to know that your horses have as light a weight to draw as possible, but you will find the motion of such a carriage infinitely more agreeable than that of one which is dragged along with difficulty. Besides, a pony-carriage that is intended only to carry a light weight, and to run over smooth turf or a good road, need not be built so strongly as a travelling carriage, which is to convey luggage as well as passengers, and which will be exposed to all the rough treatment it is likely to meet with at inns, as well as the shaking it will probably undergo from the different kinds of roads to be driven over. It is curious enough, however, that a carriage is rarely so much hurt by passing over pavement, however much it appears to shake, as it is by passing over bad roads, the surface of which is uneven, and by which the springs and braces are strained unequally. The French postilions are so well aware of this, that they always prefer rattling their carriages over the _pavé_, to driving on the side roads, however smooth and inviting they may look. In ancient times we are told the ladies had rods, called _pomelles_, fixed in the roofs of their carriages, with a knob at the end to hold by, in order to steady themselves when the carriage was jerked about by the deep ruts in the roads. This was, I believe, about the time of Chaucer; and though we retain remnants of the custom in the lace-holders of carriages in modern days, our carriages are now too well hung to render anything of the kind really necessary. You are perhaps not aware that a carriage is hung exactly on the same principle as a hammock is suspended in a ship at sea, viz. to substitute a gentle and regular swinging motion for an irregular jerking one. The principle of suspending carriages is as old as the time of the Saxons; but it has been reserved for modern days to break the force of inevitable jolts, by such a variety of pieces of elastic steel or springs, as to render travelling in a carriage as easy as gliding in a boat down a smooth river. Carriages, such as those we have now in use, are, as no doubt you know, quite a recent invention. You remember the celebrated letter of Henry IV., in which he says, "I cannot come to you to-day, because my wife is using my coach;" and even in the time of Charles II. there were but fifty coaches in London and Westminster. Now it would be rather difficult to count them, and it would even be a more tedious task than I should like to undertake, to enumerate their kinds. I shall, therefore, content myself with mentioning the points that are of most importance in selecting a carriage.