the contrary, the outside of the mail had its own
incommunicable advantages. These we could not forego. The higher price we
should willingly have paid, but that was connected with the condition of
riding inside, which was insufferable. The air, the freedom of prospect,
the proximity to the horses, the elevation of seat--these were what we
desired; but, above all, the certain anticipation of purchasing occasional
opportunities of driving.

Under coercion of this great practical difficulty, we instituted a
searching inquiry into the true quality and valuation of the different
apartments about the mail. We conducted this inquiry on metaphysical
principles; and it was ascertained satisfactorily, that the roof of the
coach, which some had affected to call the attics, and some the garrets,
was really the drawing-room, and the box was the chief ottoman or sofa
in that drawing-room; whilst it appeared that the inside, which had been
traditionally regarded as the only room tenantable by gentlemen, was, in
fact, the coal-cellar in disguise.

Great wits jump. The very same idea had not long before struck the
celestial intellect of China. Amongst the presents carried out by our first
embassy to that country was a state-coach. It had been specially selected
as a personal gift by George III.; but the exact mode of using it was a
mystery to Pekin. The ambassador, indeed, (Lord Macartney,) had made some
dim and imperfect explanations upon the point; but as his excellency
communicated these in a diplomatic whisper, at the very moment of his
departure, the celestial mind was very feebly illuminated; and it became
necessary to call a cabinet council on the grand state question--"Where was
the emperor to sit?" The hammer-cloth happened to be unusually gorgeous;
and partly on that consideration, but partly also because the box offered
the most elevated seat, and undeniably went foremost, it was resolved by
acclamation that the box was the imperial place, and, _for the scoundrel
who drove, he might sit where he could find a perch_. The horses,
therefore, being harnessed, under a flourish of music and a salute of guns,
solemnly his imperial majesty ascended his new English throne, having the
first lord of the treasury on his right hand, and the chief jester on his
left. Pekin gloried in the spectacle; and in the whole flowery people,
constructively present by representation, there was but one discontented
person, which was the coachman. This