frequent mention therefore of such equipages in old books is likely to
mislead us. We attribute to magnificence what was really the effect of a
very disagreeable necessity. People, in the time of Charles the Second,
travelled with six horses, because with a smaller number there was great
danger of sticking fast in the mire. Nor were even six horses always
sufficient. Vanbrugh, in the succeeding generation, described with great
humour the way in which a country gentleman, newly chosen a member of
Parliament, went up to London. On that occasion all the exertions of six
beasts, two of which had been taken from the plough, could not save the
family coach from being embedded in a quagmire.

Public carriages had recently been much improved. During the years which
immediately followed the Restoration, a diligence ran between London and
Oxford in two days. The passengers slept at Beaconsfield. At length, in
the spring of 1669, a great and daring innovation was attempted. It was
announced that a vehicle, described as the Flying Coach, would perform
the whole journey between sunrise and sunset. This spirited undertaking
was solemnly considered and sanctioned by the Heads of the University,
and appears to have excited the same sort of interest which is excited
in our own time by the opening of a new railway. The Vicechancellor, by
a notice affixed in all public places, prescribed the hour and place
of departure. The success of the experiment was complete. At six in the
morning the carriage began to move from before the ancient front of All
Souls College; and at seven in the evening the adventurous gentlemen
who had run the first risk were safely deposited at their inn in London.
[147] The emulation of the sister University was moved; and soon a
diligence was set up which in one day carried passengers from Cambridge
to the capital. At the close of the reign of Charles the Second flying
carriages ran thrice a week from London to the chief towns. But no stage
coach, indeed no stage waggon, appears to have proceeded further north
than York, or further west than Exeter. The ordinary day's journey of
a flying coach was about fifty miles in the summer; but in winter, when
the ways were bad and the nights long, little more than thirty. The
Chester coach, the York coach, and the Exeter coach generally reached
London in four days during the fine season, but at Christmas not till
the sixth day. The passengers, six in number, were all seated i