The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

"Day hath put on his jacket, and around His burning bosom buttoned it with stars," the eeriness of a night-journey would be experienced. During hard frost the clear ring of the horses' feet would be heard upon the road; the discomfort of fellow-passengers rolling about in their places, overcome by sleep, would be felt; while in the solemn dulness of the darker hours of night the monotony of the situation would be relieved at intervals, in the mineral districts, by miniature mountains of blazing coal, shedding their lurid glare upon the coach as it passed, and showing up the figures of soiled and dusky men employed thereat, thus creating a horrible impression upon the passengers, and seeming to afford an effective representation of Dante's shadowy world. Or, on occasions of great national triumph--when, for example, some important victory crowned our arms--the coach, decked out with ribbons or green leaves, would be the bearer of the joyful and intoxicating news down into the country,--the driver and guard, as the official representatives of the Crown, being the heroes of the hour. But it may be of interest to learn what a mail-coach journey was from one who had just completed such a trip, and who, in the freshness of youth, and with the unreserve which can only subsist in correspondence between members of a family or dear friends, immediately commits his impressions to writing. We have a vivid sketch of a journey of this kind from no less a personage than Felix Mendelssohn, the great musical composer. Mendelssohn was at the time a young man of twenty: he had been making a tour in Scotland with his friend Klingemann--the visit being that from which, by the way, Mendelssohn derived inspiration for the composition of his delightful Scotch symphony; and the means by which he quitted the northern kingdom was by mail-coach from Glasgow to Liverpool. The following letter, descriptive of the journey, and dated August 19, 1829, is copied from an interesting work called 'The Mendelssohn Family':--