r before steel springs were invented, it was by no means
pleasant to ride all day in a jolting cart--and the most gorgeous of the
Roman _carrucae_, or coaches, was no better. Pompous and splendid
indeed--to pass for a moment from Norman and Saxon barbarism--must have
been the aspect of the Queen of Roads within a few leagues of the capital
of the world; splendid and pompous as it was to the actual beholder, it
is perhaps seen to best advantage in the following description by
Milton--

"Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see
What conflux issuing forth, or entering in;
Praetors, proconsuls to their provinces
Hasting or on return, in robes of state,
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;
Or embassies from regions far remote,
In various habits, on the Appian road,
Or on the AEmilian."

As a pendant to this breathing picture oftan Old Road at the gate of the
"vertex omnium civitatum," we subjoin a note from Gibbon:--

"The _carrucae_ or coaches of the Romans were often of solid silver,
curiously carved and engraved, and the trappings of the mules or
horses were embossed with gold. This magnificence continued from the
reign of Nero to that of Honorius: and the Appian Road was covered
with the splendid equipages of the nobles who came out to meet St.
Melania, when she returned to Rome, six years before the Gothic
siege. Yet pomp is well exchanged for convenience; and a plain
modern coach, that is hung upon springs, is much preferable to the
silver and gold _carts_ of antiquity, which rolled on the axle-tree,
and were exposed, for the most part, to the inclemency of the
weather." {21a}

The Anglo-Saxon generally travelled on horseback. The Jews were
restricted to the ignobler mule. The former indeed had a species of
carriage; and horse-litters, probably for the use of royal or noble
ladies and invalids, are mentioned by Matthew Paris and William of
Malmesbury. Wheel-carriages appear to have multiplied after the return
of the Crusaders from Palestine--partly, it may be inferred, because
increased wealth had inspired a taste for novel luxuries, and partly
because the champions of the Cross had imbibed in the Holy War some of
the prejudices of the infidels, and had grown chary of exposing to vulgar
gaze their dames and daughters on horseback. {21b}

The speed of travelling d