practice may have arisen during the Civil Wars from frequent emergency, a ready-saddled horse being of even greater comparative value than the traditional bird in the hand; and we all know how hard it is to depart from custom which has been once established. That the good man was merciful to his beast in those days hardly appears probable, if we are to take the small black nag as evidence. His furniture, too, seems much more adapted for service than show, despite its variety of colours; and perhaps the animal may have been seized, as was not uncommon, by some messenger of State making the best of his way from one part of the kingdom to another. Before the year 1636 there was no such thing as a postal service for the use of the people. The Court had, it is true, an establishment for the forwarding of despatches, and in Cromwell’s time much attention was paid to it; but it was, after all, often in not much better form than when Bryan Tuke wrote as follows during the sixteenth century: “The Kinges Grace hath no mor ordinary postes, ne of many days hathe had, but betweene London and Calais.... For, sir, ye knowe well that, except the hackney-horses betweene Gravesende and Dovour, there is no suche usual conveyance in post for men in this realme, as in the accustomed places of France and other partes; ne men can keepe horses in redynes withoute som way to bere the charges; but when placardes be sent for suche cause [to order the immediate forwarding of some State packet], the constables many tymes be fayne to take horses out of ploues and cartes, wherein can be no extreme diligence.” In Elizabeth’s reign a horse-post was established on each of the great roads for the transmission of the letters for the Court; but the Civil Wars considerably interfered with this, and though in the time of Cromwell public posts and conveyances were arranged, matters were in a generally loose state after his death, and during the reign of his sovereign majesty Charles II. Truly travelling was then a venturesome matter.
In 1659, also, we come upon an advertisement having reference to a work of the great blind bard John Milton. It appears in the Mercurius Politicus of September, and is as follows:—