ABSTRACT
Perhaps it was a special occasion. The tidings of a military victory had been received-a national foe had been defeatedand the mail would convey the news to ten thousand English homes. Instead of, as now, being silently flashed in a few seconds over the length and breadth of the land, resort was had to more ordinary, and yet more striking means. Horses, men, and carriages were dressed with laurels and flowers, with oakleaves and ribbons. Coachmen and guards displayed to the best advantage around their rotund forms the royal livery; passengers, in a feeling of national exultation, lost their usual reserve ; and, when the noise of the lids locked down on the mail-bags smote on the ear, the trampling of high-bred horses, as they bounded off like leopards, and the thundering of wheels, were soon lost amid the shouts of hosts of spectators. In the remembrance of such scenes, it is scarcely surprising that some regret that they have passed away for ever. We can almost join in the song,—
There were also various other sources of innocent enjoyment in the journeyings of our grandfathers of which we have been bereft ; and it must, for instance, have been very agreeable "for a lady to be married in her riding habit, and jog off for her honeymoon on her pillion, with her arm round her husband's waist."
