still living, was for some
reason or other omitted from the engraving.

[Illustration: THE OLD WHITE LION COACHING INN, BROAD STREET, BRISTOL.]

The White Lion appears to have been the leading Inn in the town in 1824,
for on May 12 in that year the Mayor, Corporation, and leading citizens
dined there on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of the
Bristol Council House. Samuel Taylor Coleridge delivered lectures in the
large room of the Inn in 1800. It was the "blue" house, and in later
times the coach which most frequently entered its narrow archway was
driven by his Grace the sixth Duke of Beaufort, who put up at the inn on
his visits to Bristol, as he had, it is said, a great respect for Isaac
Niblett's sterling qualities and fine sporting instincts.

What an evolution in pleasure and commercial traffic has come about in
the last three-quarters of a century! When the White Lion in Broad
Street and the Bush Tavern in Corn Street were in their prime as
Coaching Inns, a four-in-hand Coach in Bristol's narrow streets and on
the neighbouring country roads was so often in evidence as scarcely to
induce the pedestrian even to turn his head round to look at one in
passing. Now such a patrician vehicle in Bristol's midst is brought down
to an unit, and it is left to Mr. Stanley White, son of Sir George
White, Bart., with his well-appointed Coach and his team of bright
chestnuts, to link old Bristol with the traditions of past Coaching
days. Strange that Mr. Stanley White should have blended in his one
person the love of a coachman for a team with the will and nerve to
render him one of Bristol's boldest and most expert drivers of the
road machine of the latest kind, to wit: the Motor Car.

[Illustration: MR. STANLEY WHITE'S COACH.]

[Illustration: MR. STANLEY WHITE'S MOTOR CAR.]

At a function in Bath in 1902, described in these pages, Colonel Palmer,
a descendant of John Palmer, presented a small curiosity to the
Corporation. Readers of Pickwick will remember that, when Mr. Pickwick
was proceeding to Bath, Sam Weller discovered inside the coach the name
of "Moses Pickwick," and wanted to fight the guard for what he
considered an outrage on his master. Among John Palmer's papers was an
old contract for the Bristol and Bath Mail Service, and one of the
parties bore the name of Pickwick, and was the landlord of the White
Hart Hotel at Bath. It was that contract which Colonel Palmer presented
to the Corporati