From the writer's extensive knowledge of prints, and his intimate acquaintance with the various collections in England, he has every reason to conclude that the original print of a Hackney Coachman, from which this Plate has been copied, is perhaps the only representation of the earliest character of that calling. The print from which it was taken is one of a Set published by Overton, at the sign of the White Horse without Newgate; and its similarity to the figures given by Francis Barlow in his Æsop's Fables, and particularly in a most curious sheet-print etched by that artist, exhibiting Charles the Second, the Duke of York, &c. viewing the Races on Dorset Ferry near Windsor, in 1687, sufficiently proves this Hackney Coachman to have been of the reign of that monarch.
The early Hackney Coachman did not sit upon the box as the present drivers do, but upon the horse, like a postilion; his whip is short for that purpose; his boots, which have large open broad tops, must have been much in his way, and exposed to the weight of the rain. His coat was not according to the fashion of the present drivers as to the numerous capes, which certainly are most rational appendages, as the shoulders never get wet; the front of the coat has not the advantage of the present folding one, as it is single breasted.
His hat was pretty broad, and so far he was screened from the weather. Another convincing proof that he rode as a postilion is, that his boots are spurred. In that truly curious print representing the very interesting Palace of Nonsuch, engraved by Hoefnagle, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the coachman who drives the royal carriage in which the Queen is seated, is placed on a low seat behind the horses, and has a long whip to command those he guides. How soon after Charles the Second's time the Hackney Coachmen rode on a box the writer has not been able to learn, but in all the prints of King William's time the Coachmen are represented upon the box, though by no means so high as at present; nor was it the fashion at the time of Queen Anne to be so elevated as to deprive the persons in the carriage of the pleasure of looking over their shoulders.
Brewer, in his "Beauties of Middlesex," observes in a note, that "It is familiarly said, that Hackney, on account of its numerous respectable inhabitants, was the first place near London provided with Coaches for hire, for the accommodation of families, and that thence arises the term Hackney Coaches."