as the cry of the foundering line-of-battle ship _Vengeur_, as the
vaunt of General Cambronne at Waterloo, "La Garde meurt, mais ne se
rend pas," or as the repartees of Talleyrand.] of Marengo), "Ah!
wherefore have we not time to weep over you?"--which was evidently
impossible, since, in fact, we had not time to laugh over them. Tied to
post-office allowance in some cases of fifty minutes for eleven miles,
could the royal mail pretend to undertake the offices of sympathy and
condolence? Could it be expected to provide tears for the accidents of
the road? If even it seemed to trample on humanity, it did so, I felt,
in discharge of its own more peremptory duties.

Upholding the morality of the mail, _a fortiori_ I upheld its
rights; as a matter of duty, I stretched to the uttermost its privilege
of imperial precedency, and astonished weak minds by the feudal powers
which I hinted to be lurking constructively in the charters of this
proud establishment. Once I remember being on the box of the Holyhead
mail, between Shrewsbury and Oswestry, when a tawdry thing from
Birmingham, some "Tallyho" or "Highflyer," all flaunting with green and
gold, came up alongside of us. What a contrast to our royal simplicity
of form and colour in this plebeian wretch! The single ornament on our
dark ground of chocolate colour was the mighty shield of the imperial
arms, but emblazoned in proportions as modest as a signet-ring bears to
a seal of office. Even this was displayed only on a single panel,
whispering, rather than proclaiming, our relations to the mighty state;
whilst the beast from Birmingham, our green-and-gold friend from false,
fleeting, perjured Brummagem, had as much writing and painting on its
sprawling flanks as would have puzzled a decipherer from the tombs of
Luxor. For some time this Birmingham machine ran along by our side--a
piece of familiarity that already of itself seemed to me sufficiently
Jacobinical. But all at once a movement of the horses announced a