s treason, it was _laesa majestas_, it was by tendency
arson; and the ashes of Jack's pipe, falling amongst the straw of the
hinder boot, containing the mail-bags, raised a flame which (aided by the
wind of our motion) threatened a revolution in the republic of letters. But
even this left the sanctity of the box unviolated. In dignified repose,
the coachman and myself sat on, resting with benign composure upon our
knowledge--that the fire would have to burn its way through four inside
passengers before it could reach ourselves. With a quotation rather too
trite, I remarked to the coachman,--

----"Jam proximus ardet
Ucalegon."

But recollecting that the Virgilian part of his 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 next-door neighbor
Ucalegon. The coachman said nothing, but, by his faint sceptical smile, he
seemed to be thinking that he knew better; for that in fact, Ucalegon, as
it happened, was not in the way-bill.

No dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itself with the
indeterminate and mysterious. The connection of the mail with the state
and the executive government--a connection obvious, but yet not strictly
defined--gave to the whole mail establishment a grandeur and an official
authority which did us service on the roads, and invested us with
seasonable terrors. But perhaps these terrors were not the less impressive,
because their exact 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 the 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
generations, and nothing is wanting but the headsman and his axe, the block
and the sawdust, to close up the vista of his horrors. What! shall it be
within benefit of clergy to delay the king's message on the high
road?--to interrupt the great respirations,