The artist is as good a workman as ever drew the reins of four horses through the fingers of left hand: his cattle are all of the right stamp for coaching-sightly and full of action, and his drag quite stylish enough for any four-in-hand amateur who would do the thing as it ought to be. The fastidious, perhaps, have cause for cavil at the arrangement on the upper ground. One or two of the teams are not without a leaven of the property equestrian yclept "scratch;" and Carpenter, though a careful and skilful coachman, is somewhat too professional and heedless of the outward man for those who have been accustomed to the Baronet and "Charley Jones."

The Beaufort is drawn out of "the village" in a fashion to entitle the children of Israel to a New Jerusalem. I could look with complacence on the whole tribe of Levi, for the sake of the four bays that "Alec" puts together on each returning noon, at the Yorkshire Stingo. Mr. Sackville Gwynne is the regular workman on the London end; and Mr. Drummond Baring escorts it from a little below Horley to "the brine." The coaches, however, I do not like; they are quite too short in the perch (the original sin of the celebrated Windsor Taglionis; indeed, I believe one of them is now a Beaufort); which not only gives them an ungraceful, "pudgy" appearance, but renders -them less safe for fast work. Mr. Baring told me the only inconvenience he found from it was, that, when going down hill, with the slipper on, they were apt to broach "broadside to;" but I cannot conceive them as steady, under any circumstances, as coaches having a greater hold of the ground. This is a new concern, and therefore it is unfair to submit it to too rigid criticism. If it had had time to mature its appointments, I might then say something about the middle teams, which I shall leave unsaid. The four that drew me into Brighton had no fault, save that of being far too much above their work; the nearside leader, Mr. Gwynne (who was working the lower ground for Mr. Baring) told me had been sold, the day before, to an officer of the eleventh Huzzars, for a hundred guineas. He was a fairish-shaped nag, with plain useful action, shewing a good deal of work in his fore legs, and anybody's buying, say at five-and-thirty guineas. But, then, he was a skew-bald; and your young Huzzar is just the style of person to be made the victim of his whistle. Before I part with the line of business in which the gentleman dragsman "frets his hour upon the stage," in the spirit of fair play I must urge one argument in favour of that body. All the professionals, from first to last, seize every opportunity, and inopportunity, of sneering at amateur coachmen, and hinting at some awful catastrophe which, at no distant day, some particular "swell" is predestined to work out. Now I have had a tolerable experience of the Brighton line for the last half-dozen years, more especially of the amateur portion of its workmen; and, during the whole of that period, I never saw even the promise of an accident, save on one occasion, that had nearly made up for all my luck. I was on the box of the four o'clock Times, when she swung over, in the middle of the road, at Thorndon Heath; one of those " 'spills" that few people who are concerned in say much about afterwards. Now, the Times is the most strictly professional coach between Brighton and London, and, on the occasion alluded to, was driven by one of the most popular professional dragsmen on that road.

Nobody ever writes about coach-travelling in England without submitting that of other countries to a comparison with it; most especially the public conveyances of France are made odious thereby. The estimate is turned to an account by no means fair as regards its national application. Where the public conveyance is a government monopoly, and a law exists, that whoever starts first from Paris shall arrive first at Versailles, there is neither hope nor need for anything above mediocrity in the appliances of travel. If A go his ways with a pair of fifteen-franc dogsmeaters, assured of reaching his destination before B, with two Arab coursers to his caléche, merely because he has started first by the fraction of a minute, what inducement, pray, has B to turn out as becomes a Christian? I admit that your foreigner is infinitely below the average of his general taste in matters of equipage; but then he has less incitement to excellence in that pursuit (if I may be allowed the term) than we have. Thus stands the case of continental coaching; it is bad in principle, worse in theory, worst in practice. But so say not all; so far from it, some philosophers have lately found out that we ought to take example from the Germans and French in putting together our teams for road-work. There never was a Noodle to give advice, but he found some Doodle to follow it. The result has been, that in many of our coaches doing eleven miles an hour, over roads as level as billiard-tables, may be seen four blood horses at the top of their speed, with heads as loose as so many Suffolk punches at plough. An elderly gentleman wrote sentiment about the German Dobbins, who "live at home at ease," and go about their affairs as little encumbered with head-gear as German sausages; and, lo! a Brighton coachman, who changes on the top of Brixton Hill, discovers that his team performs its five miles to the Elephant far better without the impediment of bearing-reins! Nor rests the matter here; philanthropy is out of fashion, and philo-zoophy is all the rage. Some stage coachman, whose heart was loving-kindness in the form of a cone, detected the cruelty of running the leaders' reins between the ears of the wheelers, and straightway they (the leading-reins) were worked through terrets, fixed outside the wheelers' bridles; an invention whereby, for an ounce of inconvenience removed from a horse, a ton or two of trouble was imposed upon the driver, and fifty per cent. of danger insured to the passengers. Is it that the saying might be fulfilled which declares, that "when once the point of excellence is reached, decay has begun its work," that already some of the best appointed of our remaining coaches exhibit a most un-English slovenliness in the style of their set-out? Twenty years ago, when, from the ordinary condition of the roads, coach-horses were always in their collars, everything ought to have been subservient to their ease and freedom; now, that in nine cases out of every ten the coach does one half the journey herself-nay, frequently draws her team too, not only is it unnecessary, but unsafe, to dispense with any portion of gear tending to give a coachman power over his horses.

I have thus been drawn a little wide of my subject, from having seen, among such patterns of taste, and men of skill in their profession, as the Brighton dragsmen, wheelers left to their own discretions whether they carry their bridles or not (inasmuch as being minus bearing-reins, there was nothing to hinder them from popping their

noddles under the pole-chains and pleasing themselves), and leaders at work after the fashion of those in brewers' drays. There is still a short respite for the road; let us not be careless of its fame, while yet an hour of its existence remains: and, above all, let it not be said, that whatever carrion fancies prevail elsewhere, a shadow of bad taste should sully that, which once was "the observed of all observers." The gentleman who arranges the Mile End "Bus" may strip his steeds of pads, cruppers, and every inch of "superfluous" leather, and yet he must sing small to the Red Shank of Connemara, who works his garron" by the tail. When coaching shall be but a thing of memory, I would have it embalmed in the reminiscences of "THE BRIGHTON ROAD."

CRAVEN.

A SCENE FROM LIFE.

FLEETING and few the joys that mortals know!
Short liv'd is pleasure in this world of woe!
With feelings blunted, passions sated, still
One joy remains, possession cannot kill:
Youth's fires extinct, a Melrose-moonlight plays
Yet round the broken roue's later days;
When his task'd powers their offices resign,
One bliss awaits him yet, he still can dine!
'Tis seven, soft hour! best of the twenty-four,
And day's long, laboured idleness is o'er;
Behold him now, stern moralist! and say,
If angry passions that pale face betray;
Behold him now, ye who possess the boon
Granted to few, of entering that saloon,
By rarest art contriv'd, by luxury grac'd
(But luxury still subservient to taste);
A chasten'd light, by alabaster shed,
Flings a soft halo round Amphitryon's head,
And o'er some gem of art uncertain plays,
Till the cold marble warms beneath the gaze.
Instinct with life, the canvas seems to glow,

To throb, with young desire, those heaving breasts of snow.

The banquet o'er, the magnum makes its rounds,

Coated with pearly dew; the jest rebounds;

Satire each sentence, a bon mot each word,

On every side the gay retort is heard;

Mirth holds her sway, enthron'd supreme o'er all,
But no rude laughter rings through that voluptuous hall.

The bowl appears! good wine its work hath done,
And punch completes what claret had begun :
Amphitryon's nose grows red! one, amorous, tries
Canova's nymph t'explore, with hands and eyes;
Venting his sorrow in a low, deep, moan,
On finding all he wish'd, save life alone:
Three 'neath the table quietly have sunk,-
Amphitryon and his guests are very drunk !

Φιλοχρήτης.

ROYAL YACHT SQUADRON LIST,
CORRECTED TO AUGUST, 1840.

HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY THE QUEEN.
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT.