The _days_, nay, the very _nights_ of those who have so long
"_reined_" supreme over the "Nonpareils" and the "Brilliants," the
"Telegraphs" and the "Stars," the "Magnets" and the "Emeralds," are
nearly at an end, and the final way-bill of the total "Eclipse" is
made up. It is positively their last appearance on this stage.
In a few weeks they will be unceremoniously pushed from their boxes
by an inanimate thing of vapour and flywheels--by a meddling fellow
in a clean white jacket and a face not ditto to match, who, mounted
on the engine platform, has for some weeks been flourishing a red
hot poker over their heads, in triumph at their discomfiture and
downfall; and the turnpike road, shorn of its glories, is left
desolate and lone. No more shall the merry rattle of the wheels, as
the frisky four-in-hand careers in the morning mist, summon the
village beauty from her toilet to the window-pane to catch a
passing nod of gallantry; no more shall they loiter by the way to
trifle with the pretty coquette in the bar, or light up another
kind of flame for the fragrant Havannah fished from amongst the
miscellaneous deposits in the depths of the box-coat pockets. True,
the race were always a little fond of _raillery_, and therefore
they die by what they love--we speak of course of professional
demise--but no doubt they "hold it hard," after having so often
"pulled up" to be thus pulled down from their "high eminences," and
compelled to sink into mere landlords of hotels, farmers, or
private gentlemen. Yet so it is. They are "regularly booked."
Their "places are taken" by one who shows no disposition to make
room for them; even their coaches are already beginning to crumble
into things that have been; and their bodies (we mean their coach
bodies) are being seized upon by rural loving folks, for the vulgar
purpose of summer-houses. But a few days and they will all vanish--
"And like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a _trace_ behind."
No, not even a buckle, or an inch of whipcord; and if, some years
hence a petrified whipple tree, or the skeleton of a coachman,
should be turned up, they will be hung up side by side with rusty
armour and the geological gleanings of our antediluvian ancestors.
We cannot part with our civil, obliging, gentlemanly friends of the
road without a feeling of regret, and an expression of gratitude
for the benefits they have done us. It was pleasant, after a warm
breakfast, to remove our heels from the hob, and ensconce oneself
by the side of our modern whip--to establish a partnership in his
cosy leathern apron--to see him handling his four spirited bays as
though his reins were velvet--and having, with a few familiar words
and a friendly cigar, drawn the cork from the bottle of his varied
information, to learn, as we slapped along at ten miles an hour,
whose park it was, stretching away to the left, to listen to his
little anecdotes of horse and flesh, and his elucidation of the
points of the last Derby. "Peace to the _manes_ and to the names"
of our honest coachmen, one and all of them, and of their horses
too--we speak of their whippish names, for in the _body_ we hope
they may long tarry, and flourish to _boot_, in other departments
of the living.