Coaching days and coaching ways . ll powerlessto move it. The state of the roads at this time in earlyspring and winter must have been something awful. Solate as 1797, Middleton, in his Survey of Middlesex,speaking of the Oxford road at Uxbridge, observes thatduring the whole of the winter there was but one pass-able track on it, and that was less than six feet wide andwas eight inches deep in fluid sludge. To be in charac-ter, on a sliding scale, all the rest of the road was froma foot to eighteen inches deep in adhesive mud, which THE HATH ROAD ii was better. Earlier roads, more adhesive mud
Coaching days and coaching ways . ll powerlessto move it. The state of the roads at this time in earlyspring and winter must have been something awful. Solate as 1797, Middleton, in his Survey of Middlesex,speaking of the Oxford road at Uxbridge, observes thatduring the whole of the winter there was but one pass-able track on it, and that was less than six feet wide andwas eight inches deep in fluid sludge. To be in charac-ter, on a sliding scale, all the rest of the road was froma foot to eighteen inches deep in adhesive mud, which THE HATH ROAD ii was better. Earlier roads, more adhesive mud. Andwhen snow was on the ground, more adhesive snow ;causing coaches to stand on their heads in snow drifts :and guards with blue noses to mount the unharnessedleaders and take on the mails. Small wonder thenthat in 1668 the Bath Flying Machine sticks fast andneeds four cart horses, pressed into the service, after muchbawling, to pull it on to firm land again. Meanwhile ithas blocked the road for an hour to all but the fortunate. A Breakdown: Taking on the Mails. people who can afford to ride post. Amongst theseenvied ones of the earth is his Grace the Duke of Buck-ingham, who rides furiously by, scattering the mud farand wide on each side of him—his rich dress disorderedand travel-stained, his horse covered with foam—hisattendants spurring to keep up with his headlong paceand cursing the Bath Coach as they ride by it. HisGrace is making for Cliefden, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and of Love,5 12 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS which ladys husband he has just run through the rightbreast and shoulder at Barne Elms ; her ladyship, who
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