es which distinguished and disgraced the Byzantine Court,
Seneca records three circumstances relative to the journeys of the Roman
nobility. They were preceded by a troop of Numidian light horse who
announced by a cloud of dust the approach of a great man. Their
baggage-mules transported not only the precious vases, but even the
fragile vessels of crystal and _murra_, which last probably meant the
porcelain of China and Japan. The delicate faces of the young slaves
were covered with a medicated crust or ointment, which secured them
against the effects of the sun and frost. Rightly did the Romans name
their baggage _impedimenta_. A funeral pace was the utmost that could be
expected from travellers so particular about their accommodations as
these luxurious senators. Of a much humbler character was the state
observed by the monarchs who succeeded to portions of the empire of the
Caesars. The Merovingian kings, when they employed wheel carriages at
all, rode in wains drawn by bullocks; the Bretwaldas of the Saxon
kingdoms went to temple or church on high festivals in the same cumbrous
fashion; and "slow oxen" dragged the standard of the Italian Republics
into the battle-field.

With the disuse or breaking up of the great Roman Viae in our island, the
difficulty and delay of travelling increased, and more than thirteen
centuries elapsed before it was again possible to journey with any
tolerable speed. Wolsey indeed, it is well known, by the singular
rapidity with which he conveyed royal letters to and from Brussels,
galloped swiftly up the road of royal favour: and by his fast style of
living at home afterwards galloped even more swiftly down again.
Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, was noted for his incessant restlessness,
and his rapid mode of passing from one land to another; but then he
dispensed with all state and attendance, and rode like a post-boy from
one end of Europe to another. As the readers of Pope, Swift, and their
contemporaries are daily becoming fewer in number, we venture to extract
the Dean's pleasant burlesque on this eccentric nobleman's migratory
habits.

"Mordanto fills the trump of fame,
The Christian worlds his deeds proclaim,
And prints are crowded with his name.

In journeys he outrides the post,
Sits up till midnight with his host,
Talks politics and gives the toast;

Knows every prince in Europe's face,
Flies like a squib from place to place,
An