James. They have added two cart-horses to the four old mares, because my lady will have it said she came to town in her coach-and-six; and ha! ha! heavy George, the ploughman, rides postilion!

     Uncle Richard. Very well; the journey begins as it should
     do—­James!

     James. Sir!

     Uncle R. Dost know whether they bring all the children with them?

     James. Only Squire Humphry and Miss Betty, Sir; the other six are
     put to board at half-a-crown a week a head with Joan Growse, at
     Smoke-dunghill Farm.

     Uncle R. The Lord have mercy upon all good folks!  What work will
     these people make!  Dost know when they’ll be here?

James. John says, Sir, they’d have been here last night, but that the old wheezy-belly horse tired, and the two fore-wheels came crash down at once in Waggon-rut Lane.  Sir, they were cruelly loaden, as I understand.  My lady herself, he says, laid on four mail trunks, besides the great deal-box, which fat Tom sat upon behind.

     Uncle R. So.

James. Then within the coach there was Sir Francis, my lady, the great fat lap-dog, Squire Humphry, Miss Betty, my lady’s maid, Mrs. Handy, and Doll Tripe, the cook—­but she puked with sitting backward, so they mounted her into the coach-box.

     Uncle R. Very well.

James. Then, Sir, for fear of a famine before they should get to the baiting-place, there was such baskets of plum-cake, Dutch gingerbread, Cheshire cheese, Naples biscuits, maccaroons, neats’ tongues, and cold boiled beef; and in case of sickness, such bottles of usquebaugh, black-cherry brandy, cinnamon water, sack, tent, and strong beer, as made the old coach crack again.

     Uncle R. Well said!

James. And for defence of this good cheer, and my lady’s little pearl necklace, there was the family basket-hilt sword, the great Turkish cimiter, the old blunder-buss, a good bag of bullets, and a great horn of gunpowder.

     Uncle R. Admirable!

Vanbrugh’s friend, Colley Cibber, was also of foreign origin.  His father was a native of Holstein, and coming over to England before the Restoration, is known as having executed the two figures of lunatics, for the gates of Bethlehem Hospital.  Colley commenced life as an actor and playwriter, and Vanbrugh was so pleased with his “Love’s Last Shift, or the Fool of Fashion,” that he wrote an improved version of it in “The Relapse.”  Thus Sir Novelty Fashion was developed into Lord Foppington, and Vanbrugh, who patronized Cibber, employed him to act the character.  He was an exception to the rule that a good playwriter is not a good performer.  In Cibber, we especially mark the Spanish element, which then tinged the drama, and although somewhat prosy and sententious, he is fertile and entertaining in his love intrigues.  Of real humour, he seems to have no gift—­some of his best attempts referring to such common failures as sometimes occur at hotels.  We have in “She wou’d, and she wou’d not,”