but those travellers who, in the early days of coaching, a century and a half ago, desired the safest, speediest, and most comfortable journey to exeter, went by a very much longer route than any of those already named. they went, in fact, by the bath road and thence through somerset. the exeter road beyond basingstoke was at that period a miserable waggon-track, without a single turnpike; while the road to bath had, under the management of numerous turnpike-trusts, already become a comparatively fine highway. the somersetshire squires were also bestirring themselves to improve their roads, despite the strenuous opposition encountered from the peasantry and others on the score of their rights being invaded, and the anticipated ruin of local trade.{4}

a writer of that period, advocating the setting up of turnpikes on the direct road to exeter, anticipated little trouble in converting that ‘waggon-track’ into a first-class highway. four turnpikes, he considered, would suffice very well from salisbury to exeter; nor would the improvement of the way over the downs demand much labour, for the bottom was solid, and one general expense for pickaxe and spade work, for levelling, and for widening at the approaches to the villages would last a long while; experience proving so much, since those portions of the road remained pretty much the same as they had been in the days of julius c?sar.

‘it may be objected,’ continues this reformer, ‘that the peasantry will demolish these turnpikes so soon as they are erected, but we will not suppose this is in a well-governed happy state like ours. lex non supponet odiosa. if such terrors were to take place, the great legislative power would lie at the mercy of the rabble. if the mob will not hear reason they must be taught it.

a plea for good roads

‘it may be urged that there are not passengers enough on the western road to defray the expenses of erecting these turnpikes. to this i answer by denying the fact; ’tis a road very much frequented, and the natural demands from the west to london and all england on the one part, and from all the eastern counties to exeter, plymouth, and falmouth, etc., on the other are very great, especially in war-time. besides, were the roads more practicable, the number of travellers would increase, especially of those who make best for towns and inns—namely,{5} such people of fashion and fortune as make various tours in england for pleasure, health, and curiosity. in picturesque counties, like cornwall and devon, where the natural curiosities are innumerable, many gentlemen of taste would be fond of making purchases, and spending their fortunes, if with common ease they could readily go to and return from their enchanted castles. whereas, a family, as things now stand, or a party of gentlemen and ladies, would sooner travel to the south of france and back again than down to falmouth or the land’s end. and ’tis easier and pleasanter—so that all beyond sarum or dorchester is to us terra incognita, and the mapmakers might, if they pleased, fill the vacuities of devon and cornwall with forests, sands, elephants, savages, or what they please. travellers of every denomination—the wealthy, the man of taste, the idle, the valetudinary—would all, if the roads were good, visit once at least the western parts of this island. whereas, every man and woman that has an hundred superfluous guineas must now turn bird of passage, flit away across the ocean, and expose themselves to the ridicule of the french. now, what but the goodness of the roads can tempt people to make such expensive and foolish excursions, since, out of fifty knight-and lady-errants, not two, perhaps, can enounce half a dozen french words. their inns are infinitely worse than ours, the aspect of the country less pleasing; men, manners, customs, laws are no objects with these itinerants, since they can neither speak nor read the language. i have known twelve at a time ready to starve at paris and lie in the{6} streets, though their purses were well crammed with louis d’or. when they wanted to go to bed, they yawned to the chambermaid, or shut their eyes; when hunger attacked, they pointed to their mouths. even pretty miss k., and miss g., realised not the distortion of their labial muscles, but cawed like unfledged birds for food. they paid whatever the french demanded, and were laughed at (not before their faces, indeed) most immeasurably. and yet simpletons of this class spent near ￡100,000 last year in france.

‘but to return. a rich citizen in london, a gentleman of large fortune eastwards, has, perhaps, some very valuable relations or friends in the west. half a dozen times in his lifetime he hears of their welfare by the post, and once, perhaps, receives a token when the western curate posts up to town to be initiated into a benefice—and that is all. he thinks no more of visiting them than of traversing the deserts of nubia, considering them as a sort of separate beings, which might as well be in the moon, or in limbo patrum.

conservatives

‘i hear the nobility and gentry of somersetshire have exerted a laudable spirit, and are now actually erecting turnpikes, which will give that fruitful county a better intercourse with its neighbours, and bring an accession of wealth into it; for every wise traveller who goes from london to exeter, etc. will surely take bath in his way (as the digression is a mere nothing). at least, all the expensive people with coaches certainly will—and then the supine inhabitants of wilts and dorset may repine in vain; for when a road once comes into repute, and persons{7} find a pleasant tour and good usage, they will never return to that which is decried as out of vogue; unless, indeed, they should reason as a marlborough stage-coachman did when turnpikes were first erected between london and bath. a new road was planned out, but still my honest man would go round by a miserable waggon-track called “ramsbury narrow way.” one by one, from little to less, he dawdled away all his passengers, and when asked why he was such an obstinate idiot, his answer was (in a grumbling tone) that he was now an aged man; that he relished not new fantasies; that his grandfather and father had driven the aforesaid way before him, and that he would continue in the old track to his death, though his four horses only drew a passenger-fly. but the proprietor saw no wit in this: the old automedon “resigned” (in the court phrase), and was replaced by a youth less conscientious. as a man of honour, i would not conclude without consulting the most solemn-looking waggoner on the road. this proved to be jack whipcord, of blandford. jack’s answer was, that roads had but one object—namely, waggon-driving; that he required but 5 feet width in a lane (which he resolved never to quit), and all the rest might go to the devil. that the gentry ought to stay at home and be damned, and not run gossiping up and down the country. no turnpikes, no improvements of roads for him. the scripture for him was jeremiah vi. 16.[1] thus, finding jack an{8} ill-natured brute and a profane country wag, i left him, dissatisfied.’