THE DOVER ROAD 223 



insubmissive head," already full of Faust. I sec too 

 another English man of letters as immortal as Marlowe, 

 with keen, kindly eyes, overlooking from Gad's Hill the 

 dusty track along which he, and so many of his crea- 

 tions, travelled ; and the latest of the ingenious race of 

 footpads at his adroit business on Blackheath ; and one 

 of the. last of the old coachmen (with whom I have had 

 the honour of shaking hands), calm in the emergency 

 of " chain snapped and coach running on wheelers on a 

 frosty morning," descending the Dartford side of 

 Shooter's Hill. 



Perhaps it may be thought that it would be well for 

 me, with such material in hand, to begin at the beginning. 

 But the beginning of the history of the Dover Road, I 

 fear, would be the beginning of the history of the Watling 

 Street — for the two terms are in a large measure identical 

 — and this would lead me into a long dissertation on 

 chariot wheels suddenly flying off. to the intense discom- 

 fiture of centurions ; to details concerning the stern 

 tramp of the legions ; to the heart-quaking sound of 

 " Consul Romanus," according to De Quincey ; and to 

 other classic items, foreign, even in my extended view, 

 to gossip about the great coaching roads of England. 



And so I think that (this being an age in which many 

 people talk of Chaucer without having read him) I can- 

 not do better than start from the Old Tabard in South- 

 wark — as it stood in Edward the Third's time — in 

 the company of a certain body of pilgrims who set out 

 thence for Canterbury on a certain May morning. In 

 the company, to wit, of a " verray parfight gentil 

 knight," in cassock and coat of mail ; his curly-headed 

 squire ; the brown-faced yeoman bow in hand ; the abbot, 

 a mighty hunter from his youth up ; the friar, medievally 

 typical of our street singers, abhorred by literary men ; 

 the prioress, possessed of a charming Erench lisp, and 

 having Amor vincit omnia characteristically graven upon 

 her brooch ; in the company too (in case the Tabard 

 whisky — malmsey, I mean— should prove cumulative in 



