Virgil's "AEneid" really too hackneyed--

"Jam proximus ardet
Ucalegon."

But, recollecting that the Virgilian part of the coachman's education
might have been neglected, I interpreted so far as to say that perhaps
at that moment the flames were catching hold of our worthy brother and
inside passenger, Ucalegon. The coachman made no answer,--which is my
own way when a stranger addresses me either in Syriac or in Coptic; but
by his faint sceptical smile he seemed to insinuate that he knew
better,--for that Ucalegon, as it happened, was not in the way-bill,
and therefore could not have been booked.

No dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itself with the
mysterious. The connexion of the mail with the state and the executive
government--a connexion obvious, but yet not strictly defined--gave to
the whole mail establishment an official grandeur which did us service
on the roads, and invested us with seasonable terrors. Not the less
impressive were those terrors because their legal limits were
imperfectly ascertained. Look at those turnpike gates: with what
deferential hurry, with what an obedient start, they fly open at our
approach! Look at that long line of carts and carters ahead,
audaciously usurping the very crest of the road. Ah! traitors, they do
not hear us as yet; but, as soon as the dreadful blast of our horn
reaches them with proclamation of our approach, see with what frenzy of
trepidation they fly to their horses' heads, and deprecate our wrath by
the precipitation of their crane-neck quarterings. Treason they feel to
be their crime; each individual carter feels himself under the ban of
confiscation and attainder; his blood is attainted through six