Page:Witty and entertaining exploits of George Buchanan (5).pdf/20

20 to have a passage with him in the coach to London. So he bargained with the coachman for two dollars to carry him to the Bell Inn on London bridge; the one he gave him in hand as he entered the coach, and he was to give him the other as soon as he saw him come out of the coach door. So away the coachman drives to London in all haste, in which time George wrote the following lines:—

Here sits the Bishop of Canterbury,

Who at the schools disdained to tarry:

Far better skilled in games than preaching;

And yet he lives by others’ teaching.

Blind leaders of the blind indeed:—

’Tis blind and lame that chariots need;

Six brutes with eyes this brute doth carry,—

I mean the Bishop of Canterbury.

My feet being lame I gave a dollar

To be drove in state, like you a scholar;

For which I do myself abhor,

Shame caused me make another.

These lines George battered on the inside of the coach, and when he came within a mile of London, he took a knife and cut a great hole in the buckside of the coach, through which he came out; and to make his promise good to the coachman, that he was to give him the other dollar as soon as ever he saw him come out at the coach door. The poor coachman drove on till he carne to the aforesaid inn, where he alighted and opened the door to let out his passenger; but seeing the coach empty, and a great hole in the backside of it, he cried, I believe I have had the devil in the coach, and he lias taken away the backside of it with him. The people of the inn came flocking about to see what was done; and then perceived the lines on the inside of the coach, which the bishop came and read himself: they all concluded it to he done by George, but could make nothing of it, for the bishop said, to persue might well make it worse, but no better.