a vehicle for commodious travelling, suspended on leathers, and moved on wheels. In England, and throughout Europe, the coaches are drawn by horses, except in Spain, where they use mules. In a part of the east, especially the dominions of the great Mogul, Mogul, their coaches are drawn by oxen. In Denmark they sometimes yoke rein-deer in their coaches; though rather for curiosity than use. The coachman is ordinarily placed on a seat raised before the body of the coach. But the Spanish policy has displaced him in that country by a royal ordinance; on occasion of the duke d'Olivares, who found that a very important secret, whereon he had conferred in his coach, had been overheard and revealed by his coachman: since that time the place of the Spanish coachman is the same with that of the French stage-coachman, and our postillion, viz., on the first horse on the left.
The invention of coaches is owing to the French: yet are not coaches of any great antiquity, even in France; scarce reaching beyond the reign of their Francis I. Their use, at their first rise, was only for the country: and authors observe, as a thing very singular, that there were at first no more than two coaches in Paris; the one that of the queen, and the other that of Diana natural daughter of Henry II. The first courtier who had one was Jean de Laval de Bois Dauphin; whose enormous bulk disabled him from travelling on horseback. One may hence judge how much variety, luxury, and idleness, have grown upon our heads in later days; there being now computed in that same city no less than 15,000 coaches.
Coaches have had the fate of all other inventions, to be brought by degrees to their perfection; at present they seem to want nothing, either with regard to ease or magnificence. Louis XIV. of France made several sumptuary laws for restraining the excessive richness of coaches, prohibiting the use of gold, silver, &c., therein; but they have had the fate to be neglected.
Coaches may be divided into two kinds; those that have iron bows, or necks, and those that have not: both the one and the other have two principal parts, the body and the train or carriage. The body is that part where the passengers are disposed; and the carriage that which sustains the body, and to which the wheels are fastened, that give motion to the whole machine. Coaches, with regard to their structure, are divided into coaches properly so called, chariots, calashes, &c.
Hackney-Coaches, those exposed to hire, in the streets of London, and some other great cities, at rates fixed by authority.
Eight hundred hackney-coaches, and 200 chairs, are allowed in London and Westminster; which are to be licensed by commissioners, and to pay a duty to the crown. They are all numbered, having their numbers engraven on tin plates fixed on the coach doors. Their fares or rates are fixed by act of parliament; 10s. for a whole day of 12 hours, for a single hour 1s. 6d.; for every hour after the first 1s. At these rates they are obliged to carry passengers anywhere within 10 miles of London.
Stage-Coaches, are those appointed for the conveyance of travellers from one city or town to another. The masters of stage-coaches are not liable to an action for things lost by their coachmen, who have money given them to carry the goods, unless where such matter takes a price for the same.
Couch, is also a sort of chamber or apartment in a large ship of war near the stern. The floor of it is formed by the utmost part of the quarterdeck, and the roof of it by the poop: it is generally the habitation of the captain.
Coadunatae, in botany, an order of plants in the fragmenta methodi naturalis of Linnaeus, in which he has the genera, viz., annona, liriodendron, magnolia, uvaria, michelia, thea. See Botany, p. 1316, Vol. II.