STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685 .

379

Many conveniences, which were unknown at HamptonCourt and Whitehall in the seventeenth century, are to befound in our modern hotels. Yet on the whole it is certainthat the improvement of our houses of public entertainmenthas by no means kept pace with the improvement of our roadsand of our conveyances. Nor is this strange; for it is evidentthat, all other circumstances being supposed equal, the innswill be best where the means of locomotion are worst. Thequicker the rate of travelling, the less important is it thatthere should be numerous agreeable resting places for thetraveller. A hundred and sixty years ago a person who cameup to the capital from a remote county generally requiredtwelve or fifteen meals, and lodging for five or six nightsby the way. If he were a great man, he expected the mealsand lodging to be comfortable, and even luxurious. Atpresent we fly from York or Exeter to London by the light ofa single winter’s day. At present, therefore, a travellerseldom interrupts his journey merely for the sake of rest andrefreshment. The consequence is that hundreds of excellentinns have fallen into utter decay. In a short time no goodhouses of that description will be found, except at placeswhere strangers are likely to be detained by business orpleasure.

The mode in which correspondence was carried on be-tween distant places may excite the scorn of the presentgeneration; yet it was such as might have moved the admira-tion and envy of the polished nations of antiquity, or of thecontemporaries of Raleigh and Cecil. A rude and imperfectestablishment of posts for the conveyance of letters had beenset up by Charles the First, and had been swept away by thecivil war. Under the Commonwealth the design was resumed.At the Restoration the proceeds of the Post Office, after allexpenses had been paid, were settled on the Duke of York.On most lines of road the mails went out and came in only on

CHAP.

III.

Post

Office.