250 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



But to leave the Bull and Pickwick (for the Bull is 

 not the only inn in Rochester to be described, nor is the 

 History of Pickwick by any manner of means its only 

 history) — the Crown, which stands at the foot of the 

 bridge, is a modern house now, but it is built on the site 

 of a venerable place with gables and barge boards, which 

 stood in 1390, and was pulled down (without a drawing 

 having been made of it, it is needless to remark) so late 

 only as 1863. A portion of the original stable still 

 stands, which is a remarkably interesting fact, since it was 

 here that that scene with the carriers took place in Henry 

 IV., Act II., Scene I, which was an introduction to the 

 robbery on Gad's Hill. To the Crown in its old shape 

 came as visitor Henry the Eighth to have a private peep 

 at Anne of Cleves. He came ; he saw ; he pronounced 

 her a Flanders mare. He departed, using strange words. 



The White Hart, another inn at Rochester almost 

 opposite the Bull and Victoria, now presents the appear- 

 ance of a small public-house ; but it can boast some 

 antiquity in its way, having been built in the reign of 

 Richard the Second, and in 1667 sheltered the inquisi- 

 tive head of Mr. Samuel Pepys — an incident which, re- 

 membering that Samuel was no enemy of good cheer, 

 makes it probable that in those good old days it was the 

 best inn in the place. Pepys was at Rochester on some 

 business connected with the Admiralty and dockyards. 

 He went to the Cathedral, but left before the service, 

 strolled into the fields, viewed Sir F. Clark's pretty seat, 

 and then retired to a cherry garden, where he met with 

 an adventure in the shape of a young, plain, silly shop- 

 keeper, who had a pretty young woman as his wife. 

 Mrs. Pepys not being present, on this plain shopkeeper's 

 pretty wife the susceptible Samuel threw deathly glances. 

 He also kissed her, I am sorry to have to say, and 

 they then ate their dinners together, and walked in the 

 fields till dark. An hiatus here occurs in the Diary. 

 But the paragraph on emerging from mystery ends in 

 the usual way — " and so to sleep." 



