The Old Dover Boad. 173 



ears, and impossible outside pockets on his hips, which were 

 so tight that nothing could be got in or out of them. 



Verily our dress has improved now — in proof whereof 

 we have set the fashion to all Europe — and so has our 

 social comfort as regards airy bedrooms, vice swell over- 

 furnished dungeons, lighted at night by a rushlight in a 

 horrible perforated bucket-like apparatus, w^hich made 

 ghost-eyes all over the room ; baths, and rough towels, and 

 brown Windsor, vice the small basin and jug, and hard 

 white soap which smelt like tallow and never lathered, and 

 soft towels like napkins ; iron spring beds and hau* mat- 

 tresses, vice enormous feather-beds and four-posters, shut in 

 with curtains and every kind of device which could produce 

 gout, apoplexy and indigestion. And then in winter they 

 warmed the bed with coals, and left a fine flavour of 

 Vesuvius for a niohtmare. 



And you may be sure that the landlady herself showed 

 her noble guests into their rooms ; and if the weather was 

 cold, there was a fire ready burning in the bedrooms. And 

 you may be sure the landlord took in the first dish at dinner, 

 and called his Grace's attention to the fact that he had 

 ventured to add to the dinner some Rochester smelts, fresh 

 caught that morning, or — according to season — that the 

 Kentish filberts were from a celebrated orchard ; or the 

 Kentish cherries had only just been picked for his Grace's 

 dessert, and that the oysters came from the Milton beds 

 close by. Ah me ! native oysters were carried about the 

 villages then three for a penny. Why didn't I eat more ? 

 Dr. Johnson, when he was dying, said he had never had as 

 much wall-fruit as he could eat ; I expect the present 

 generation will say, when theii' time comes, they never had 

 enough oysters. 



Our stage-coaches, with " the team all harnessed to start, 

 glittering in brass and in leather," and piled with luggage, 



