Her Majesty's Mails

FOOTNOTES: [51] No one who has read Roderick Random can forget the novelist's description of his hero's ride from Scotland to London. As it is generally believed to be a veritable account of a journey which Smollett himself made about the middle of the last century, the reader may be of opinion that the improvement here spoken of was not so great as it might have been. Roderick, however, travelled in the "stage-waggon" of the period. He and his faithful friend Strap having observed one of these waggons a quarter of a mile before them, speedily overtook it, and, ascending by means of the usual ladder, "tumbled into the straw under the darkness of the tilt," amidst four passengers, two gentlemen and two ladies. When they arrived at the first inn Captain Weazel desired a room for himself and his lady, "with a separate supper;" but the impartial innkeeper replied he "had prepared victuals for the passengers in the waggon, without respect of persons." Strap walked by the side of the waggon, changing places with his master when Roderick was disposed to walk. The mistakes, the quarrels, and the mirth of the passengers, are told by the novelist with a vivacity and humour which would have been admirable but for their coarseness. After five days' rumbling in the straw, the passengers get quite reconciled to each other; "nothing remarkable happened during the remaining part of our journey, which continued six or seven days longer."