There is another version of the epigram on Tom Onslow:--
"Say, what can Tommy Onslow do? Can drive a curricle and two. Can Tommy Onslow do no more? Yes,--drive a curricle and four."
This is the version current, we are told, among Onslow's relations in the neighbourhood of Guildford.
Lord Onslow's celebrity as _a whip_ long preceded the existence of the Four-in-Hand Club (the palmy days of which belong to the times of George the Fourth), and it was not a _coach_, but a _phaeton_, that he drove. A correspondent of the _Athenæum_ writes: "I knew him personally, in my own boyhood, in Surrey, in the first years of the present century; and I remember then hearing the epigram now referred to, not as new, but as well known, in the following form:--
'What can little T. O. do? Drive a phaeton and two. Can little T. O. do no more? Yes,--drive a phaeton and four.'
"Tommy Onslow was a little man, full of life and oddities, one of which was a fondness for driving into odd places; and I remember the surprise of a pic-nic party, which he joined in a secluded spot, driving up in his 'phaeton and four' through ways that were hardly supposed passable by anything beyond a flock of sheep. An earlier exploit of his had a less agreeable termination. He was once driving through Thames-street, when the hook of a crane, dangling down in front of one of the warehouses, caught the hood of the phaeton, tilting him out, and the fall broke his collar-bone."
The vehicles of the Club which were formerly used are described as of a hybrid class, quite as elegant as private carriages and lighter than even the mails. They were horsed with the finest animals that money could secure. In general, the whole four in each carriage were admirably matched; grey and chestnut were the favourite colours, but occasionally very black horses, or such as were freely flecked with white, were preferred. The master generally drove the team, often a nobleman of high rank, who commonly copied the dress of a mail coachman. The company usually rode outside, but two footmen in rich liveries were indispensable on the back seat, nor was it at all uncommon to see some splendidly attired female on the box. A rule of the Club was that all members should turn out three times a week; and the start was made at mid-day, from the neighbourhood of Piccadilly, through which they passed to the Windsor-road,--the attendants of each carriage playing on their silver bugles. From twelve to twenty of these handsome vehicles often left London together.