This, perhaps, does not appear so encouraging for the sport as we could wish, but we must bear in mind that, if London is supporting no more coaches now than in 1873, the love of the amusement is spreading far and wide in the provinces, concerning which we shall have to speak later on. Now, perhaps, we shall be permitted to make a few remarks on the general style and turn-out of those nearer home, and give our views on coaching for the benefit of those who may intend in the future to enter into the sport. For, let no one misunderstand us, as a sport coaching must live in these days, if it is to live at all; and the number of passengers to be carried must not be so much an object as the way the thing is done. A great eyesore we consider the knifeboard, now becoming far too common, on the roof; and it is an eyesore in two ways, both as regards spoiling the appearance of the coach and representing a hankering after filthy lucre. If those who use it had ears to hear the remarks of old waggoners on the subject, as we have done, we fancy they would not feel themselves greatly flattered; and we can assure them that, in denouncing it, we are not giving our individual opinion, but making public that of many of the best living judges of the road and its requirements. In very many cases also a stricter value should be set on time-advertising a certain pace and keeping it. This is the most crucial test of a coachman's ability, as well as of the way he horses his coach. As we heard a gentleman say this season, coaching is very different from Park driving there, as long as you keep your team straight and go clear of other people, it is little matter whether they are all working evenly or not; in fact, if the leaders do nothing, so that they keep out of the way, it is no consequence, as the load is seldom heavy, and the time they are at it generally short. In coaching it is not so: to keep quick time with a good load, every horse must do his own work, or the proprietor will very soon find it out in the wear and tear of the others. Hence we say that a coach which does not keep time is simply a strong comment on the incapacity of those connected with it for the work they have undertaken; because a man driving in that way can ease his teem at any time if he finds them knocked up by injudicious handling or rather want of handling-ten minutes or so being of no consequence where time is not kept. For our own part, we believe all would like to keep time if they could; and although they may profess not to care about it, if they do not do it, it is because they can't, as the old Scotchwoman told the minister who declined to preach extempore. Again, while consulting the public, the first and foremost idea should be, not the number to be carried, but to be well turned out from start to finish, well appointed, and inviting criticism. If it would not be invidious, we could mention one gentleman who last season had his coach altered; like other road coaches, it carried four on the back-seat, three and the guard; now it carries but two he sacrificed a seat, but improved his coach, which looks more truly a coach, more thoroughbred,' if we may be allowed the

expression. Our knifeboard friends would not have done this, or the offending excrescence would go overboard at once. Were the public critical, these points would be more attended to; but at present they are not: they go to races in crowds, knowing nothing of a throughbred horse; and they ride on coaches, knowing equally. nothing of the art of putting horses together, driving, &c., &c. Another thing: some guards appear to think they have nothing to do but blow the horn. It is a mistake; too much music behind is a positive nuisance: a guard need not be a musician; that is not his business; a horn should only be used as a necessity; what it is carried for is to give notice of the approach of the coach for the changes,' at dangerous corners, or for waggons and other things to clear the way for it. There is another phase of coaching amongst the younger men on the road which we are sorry to see, as we feel sure it is not conducive to the true interest of the sport, and that is what we may term overhorsing their coaches on the London ground; viz., using animals of such value as to be out of place in a public coach. No one likes to see a good team better than ourselves; yet we submit that Mr. A. de Rothschild's or M. de Murietta's browns, though quite firstrate in the Park, would be out of place in a public coach. A good coaching lot is a different thing altogether from a Park team; the latter is a useless expense, tending to gratify nothing but the pride of the owner, and we fancy when seen on the London ground, the teams lower down the road are apt to suffer for it. Again, as to the colour of the coach; it should be business-like, and not painted like a drag: we have seen more than one painted like a carriage. Primrose or white, with red under-carriage, are capital; so is black and yellow; and we like the old mail-coach colours. There are some coaches now running well worthy the imitation of a tyro, both in conception and execution, whose turn-out tells you at once that the owner knows all about it; they are kept wholly and solely from a true love of the sport, turned out every day alike from starting-point to destination, every horse judiciously placed, and their professionals not only workmen, but always neat and clean, and their manner civil and respectful.

We must also censure another evil, that of taking a coach off its legitimate and proper road to some race meeting or yearling sale. Again, the love of money shows itself in this. The only coach for which any excuse can be made in this way is the Dorking during Epsom week, as it then could scarcely keep its time with the crowds on the road; and there is an excuse for its going to the Downs, but this kind of thing savours too much of the jobmaster business when indulged in gratuitously.

A word as to driving. We would recommend a tyro not to be in too great a hurry to drive the London ground-of course we are presuming that he has first learnt to drive ere starting a coach; let him try the middle ground, and mid stages first; there is nothing gained by making an exhibition of himself at Hatchett's: let him never

display his ignorance; people may have thought much of him until he does so; but the indulgence of one moment's unhappy vanity may spoil all. He should remember there are often keen critics hanging about the far-famed Cellar, who have long known what's what,' and who have probably forgotten more about the art of driving than our young friend ever knew. When he can humour the queertempered and shifty ones over the middle stages, knows how to get himself out of a scrape if he should happen to drop into one, and can keep time with a heavy load and scratch team, he may parade at Hatchett's. We know one instance this year where a horse dropped in a coach and threw two more of the team; they were all down in a heap, one on the other. Cut the harness!' said some; 'Sit still, and hold your tongues!' said the coachman, who had every strap and buckle about them to undo ere he could get them up and in their places again. He did it not a horse was hurt; and he was only nine minutes behind his time. We wonder what some of our amateurs would have done in such a scrape as that, and how much they would have been behind.

Before leaving the subject of Hatchett's, we must bear testimony to the civility and attention shown there to coaching men and their passengers, the front room being placed at their disposal as a waitingroom. Neither must the clerk at the booking-office, Mr. William Banks, be forgotten, or his obliging assistant clerk, Mr. Arthur Banks. A word as to the roads. A great improvement has accrued by the abolition of turnpikes, the tolls at one time being no trifle on the Brighton road, and we remember them 17. 125. a week on the Dorking. What has, however, been gained by their abolition is more than lost by the introduction of trams, which, as far as coaching is concerned, are verily demons of the highway; they try your tires and wheels, not to mention springs; they lurch your coach about like a ship in a rough sea, and play terrible havoc with the wheelers, knocking them against the pole and each other, and causing them to brush and cut themselves to an extent little thought of by those who have not encountered them. Perhaps the coach most afflicted in this way is the Tunbridge Wells, and we hear they have determined to close their season early this year solely on that account, as it is very awkward driving over them after dark.

Next month we hope to say something concerning the coaches running in the provinces.

N.

SLAPTON LEA.

A POPULAR Derby with a deserving winner, and a not less popular Oaks; a radiant Ascot with the graceful toilettes besprinkled with the drops of an occasional shower, as it were blest tears of joy at the fair wearers having escaped from the spasmodic runes of a Windsor hot-gospelling, performed in a back-garden near an open and indictable drain; then the Italianized Hamlet of Salvini, and the dulcet tones of the best vocalists in Europe; the four-in-hand processions in the Park, with the tent-pegging of India; Polo, Badminton, and the Rink-all these manifold attractions (omitting basket-burial) combined and continuous, Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,' went far to create a longing for the calm and repose of less mercurial latitudes. The strain upon the nervous system, whether it be caused by pain or by pleasure, demands a respite from Nature, and the quietude that succeeds to sensational hilarity, which at other times would be called dullness from the absence of excitement, merges into an even tranquillity of passive enjoyment. Rest 'and be thankful,' once said a discontented squirrel, in a feigned tone of gratulation and contentment; and, although out of Polo and Badminton office for the nonce, and declining to be a sexton, more sincere than that squirrel, we can look back without repining at the past London season as one of the most brilliant upon record, made perfect by the several members of the royal family having joined heartily in the polished suavities of fashion. Far removed from the servility of adulation, and not less free from insincerity, is the grateful and approving loyalty that rejoices in a prince's favour, which the wise King of Israel has declared to be 'as dew upon the grass.'

'Once more upon the waters-yet once more, and the waves 'bound beneath me;' but the very idea of the briny precipitates an internal commotion, stirring as the last crescendo crash of the overture to the 'Gazza Ladra. No! rather the still and placid waters of Slapton Lyn, with the inglorious punt and its rod and line, 'with ' a worm at one end and a fool at the other.' So judged Samuel the Great-not the Samivel of Pickwick, nor he of the tribe of Levi, -but the old savage and capricious etymologist, who ever growled out a thankless acceptance in acknowledging the courtesy of his Amphitryon. And philosophising in the primitive punt, we will sum up and ponder over the revolving temptations of the past Carnival-hoping, however, that the perch and roach will be less prudent than ourselves, and bite freely, whereas we have only nibbled delicately, and kept our head with its pineal gland well free from halter or collar. Away, then, to Slapton Lea, by the Great Western, stopping briefly at Exeter just to ascertain how far progress had been made by the worthy and marbled Dinham, in his sliding down-hill to the station of St. David's, everlastingly pointing to and beseeching the express train, which will not stop for him. Torquay, with its multiplication of palatial villas, is determined to be beautiful for

ever; and wending onwards through a succession of romantic combes, each with its sparkling streamlet full of trout, we glide by the sinuosities of the silver Dart, and the iron horse comes to a standstill after a race of 250 miles. The ferry has to be crossed at Dartmouth -the same by which Bridget Cudlipp and Charles Mohun escaped the vigilance of the Fairfax sentries in the time of the Great Rebellion, of which more anon; the same of which, when the Prince Consort first came into the west, the stewardess of the steamer relates:When Prince Albert was here to the ferry, he said to me, "says he, "I've bin to many places in forrin parts, but I never―no, "I never did see nothing out there to come up to this here!" A titular trap from the Castle Hotel is ready to convey the travelling pescator dell'onda up hill and down dale to Stoke Fleming, one of the ancient manors formerly belonging to the family of that name, brought by an heiress to Sir John Mohun, of Dunster Castle, twelfth Knight of the Garter, temp. Ed. III. Passing the Black Pool, with its narrow bay-so named from the frequency of the wrecks of yore its dark basin, and otherwise memorable by the defeat of the French, under the command of Monsieur de Castel, in the reign of Henry IV., who after landing ravaged the country-the quiet hamlet of Street is reached, perched upon a hill abutting upon the cliffs, and at a turn of the road the mere of Slapton is spread out beneath.

in

Slapton Lea, or Lyn-from the Keltic word 'Aun,' signifying water, with the usual prefix of a consonant-is a small lake of three hundred acres, a mile and three-quarters in length, varying from a quarter to half a mile in breadth, and extending from Street Gate on the north to Torcross on the south. The manor belonged in the olden time to Sir Guy de Brian, the ancestor of the Petre family, and fifty-seventh and last Knight of the Garter made by Edward III., according to the history of Ashmole. He was standard-bearer to the king at the battle of Calais, 1349, and was rewarded with this and other manors. He built a collegiate chantry at Slapton, dedicating it to St. James, and endowed it largely, so that a choir of priests might daily sing a requiem for the peace of his soul-by which act of contrition it may be inferred that the Knight was somewhat of a freetrader in morals when in forrin' parts. The orisons of the sacerdotal intercessors have died away and are no longer heard; but a Protestant, in order that the spirit of the worthy Sir Guy should be pacified, has inscribed upon a tablet placed amongst the ivied and desecrated ruins—

'The knight's bones are dust,

And his good sword rust;

His soul is with the saints, we trust.'

The versification and the dubious warranty are as matched cattle. Requiescat.

The Lea, or Lyn, separated only by a narrow sandbank from the sea, to which it runs parallel, is fed by three small rivulets flowing into the several creeks of Ireland, Stokeleigh, and Streetgate marshes, VOL. XXVII.--No. 186.

Q