ng of him who first taught Englishmen
to box scientifically, who was the head and father of the fighters of
what is now called the old school, the last of which were Johnson and Big
Ben.' {162b}

'A wonderful man that Big Ben,' said I.

'He was so,' said the elderly individual; 'but had it not been for
Broughton, I question whether Ben would have ever been the fighter he
was. Oh! there is no one like old Broughton; but for him I should at the
present moment be sneaking along the road, pursued by the hissings and
hootings of the dirty flatterers of that black-guard coachman.'

'What did you mean,' said I, 'by those words of yours, that the coachmen
would speedily disappear from the roads?'

'I meant,' said he, 'that a new method of travelling is about to be
established, which will supersede the old. I am a poor engraver, as my
father was before me; but engraving is an intellectual trade, and by
following it, I have been brought in contact with some of the cleverest
men in England. It has even made me acquainted with the projector of the
scheme, which he has told me many of the wisest heads of England have
been dreaming of during a period of six hundred years, and which it seems
was alluded to by a certain Brazen Head in the story-book of Friar Bacon,
who is generally supposed to have been a wizard, but in reality was a
great philosopher. Young man, in less than twenty years, by which time I
shall be dead and gone, England will be surrounded with roads of metal,
on which armies may travel with mighty velocity, and of which the walls
of brass and iron by which the friar proposed to defend his native land
are types.' He then, shaking me by the hand, proceeded on his way,
whilst I returned to the inn.

CHAPTER XXVII

FRANCIS ARDRY--HIS MISFORTUNES--DOG AND LION FIGHT--GREAT MEN OF THE
WORLD

A few days after the circumstance which I have last commemorated, it
chanced that, as I was standing at the door of the inn, one of the
numerous stage-coaches which were in the habit of stopping there, drove
up, and several passengers got down. I had assisted a woman with a
couple of children to dismount, and had just delivered to her a band-box,
which appeared to be her only property, which she had begged me to fetch
down from the roof, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and heard a
voice exclaim, 'Is it possible, old fellow, that I find you in this
place?' I turned round, and wrapped in a large blue cloak,