Within these first three stages lay the foundation, the progress, and termination of our night’s adventure.  During the first stage, I found out that Cyclops was mortal:  he was liable to the shocking affection of sleep—­a thing which I had never previously suspected.  If a man is addicted to the vicious habit of sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of Apollo himself, with the horses of Aurora to execute the motions of his will, avail him nothing.  “Oh, Cyclops!” I exclaimed more than once, “Cyclops, my friend; thou art mortal.  Thou snorest.”  Through this first eleven miles, however, he betrayed his infirmity—­which I grieve to say he shared with the whole Pagan Pantheon—­only by short stretches.  On waking up, he made an apology for himself, which, instead of mending the matter, laid an ominous foundation for coming disasters.  The summer assizes were now proceeding at Lancaster:  in consequence of which, for three nights and three days, he had not lain down in a bed.  During the day, he was waiting for his uncertain summons as a witness on the trial in which he was interested; or he was drinking with the other witnesses, under the vigilant surveillance of the attorneys.  During the night, or that part of it when the least temptations existed to conviviality, he was driving.  Throughout the second stage he grew more and more drowsy.  In the second mile of the third stage, he surrendered himself finally and without a struggle to his perilous temptation.  All his past resistance had but deepened the weight of this final oppression.  Seven atmospheres of sleep seemed resting upon him; and, to consummate the case, our worthy guard, after singing “Love amongst the Roses,” for the fiftieth or sixtieth time, without any invitation from Cyclops or myself, and without applause for his poor labors, had moodily resigned himself to slumber—­not so deep doubtless as the coachman’s, but deep enough for mischief; and having, probably, no similar excuse.  And thus at last, about ten miles from Preston, I found myself left in charge of his Majesty’s London and Glasgow mail, then running about eleven miles an hour.

What made this negligence less criminal than else it must have been thought, was the condition of the roads at night during the assizes.  At that time all the law business of populous Liverpool, and of populous Manchester, with its vast cincture of populous rural districts, was called up by ancient usage to the tribunal of Lilliputian Lancaster.  To break up this old traditional usage required a conflict with powerful established interests, a large system of new arrangements, and a new parliamentary statute.  As things were at present, twice in the year so vast a body of business rolled northwards, from the southern quarter of the county, that a fortnight at least occupied the severe exertions of two judges for its dispatch.  The consequence of this was—­that every horse available for such a service, along the whole line of road, was exhausted in carrying down the multitudes of people who were parties to the different suits.  By sunset, therefore, it usually happened that, through utter exhaustion amongst men and horses, the roads were all silent.  Except exhaustion in the vast adjacent county of York from a contested election, nothing like it was ordinarily witnessed in England.