CHAPTER III.MR.CROFTANGRY, INTER ALIA, REVISITS GLENTANNER.
Then sing of stage-coaches, And fear no reproaches For riding in one; But daily be jogging, Whilst, whistling and flogging, Whilst, whistling and flogging, The coachman drives on.

FARQUHAR.
Disguised in a grey surtout which had seen service, a white castor on my head, and a stout Indian cane in my hand, the next week saw me on the top of a mail-coach driving to the westward.
I like mail-coaches, and I hate them.

I like them for my convenience; but I detest them for setting the whole world a-gadding, instead of sitting quietly still minding their own business, and preserving the stamp of originality of character which nature or education may have impressed on them.

Off they go, jingling against each other in the rattling vehicle till they have no more variety of stamp in them than so many smooth shillings--the same even in their Welsh wigs and greatcoats, each without more individuality than belongs to a partner of the company, as the waiter calls them, of the North Coach.
Worthy Mr.Piper, best of contractors who ever furnished four frampal jades for public use, I bless you when I set out on a journey myself; the neat coaches under your contract render the intercourse, from Johnnie Groat's House to Ladykirk and Cornhill Bridge, safe, pleasant, and cheap.

But, Mr.Piper, you who are a shrewd arithmetician, did it never occur to you to calculate how many fools' heads, which might have produced an idea or two in the year, if suffered to remain in quiet, get effectually addled by jolting to and fro in these flying chariots of yours; how many decent countrymen become conceited bumpkins after a cattle-show dinner in the capital, which they could not have attended save for your means; how many decent country parsons return critics and spouters, by way of importing the newest taste from Edinburgh?
And how will your conscience answer one day for carrying so many bonny lasses to barter modesty for conceit and levity at the metropolitan Vanity Fair?
Consider, too, the low rate to which you reduce human intellect.