THE BATH ROAD 



37 



riding into the battle in the belief that he would be out 

 of that misery before night ; I see the travellers on the 

 Bath Road smacking their lips over the Pelican dinners, 

 and losing their colour over the Pelican bill, each equally 



notorious at that great house. 



" The famous inn in Speenhamland 

 That stands below the hill, 

 May v^ell be called the Pelican 

 From its enormous bill," 



as Quin sang of it. On the i6th of June, 1668, Mr. 

 Samuel Pepys came to " Newberry," as he spells it, and 

 there dined " and 

 musick : a song of 

 the old courtier of 

 Oueene Eliza- 

 beth's, and how he 

 was changed upon 

 the coming in of 

 the King did please 

 me mightily, and I 

 did cause \V. Hewer 

 to write it out. 

 Then comes the 

 reckoning (forced to 

 change gold), Ss. jd. 

 servants, and poor 

 i^. 6d. So out 

 and lost our way ; 

 but come into it 

 again." I do not 

 see Chaucer writ- 

 ing the Canterbury 



Tales under the oak named after him in Donnington 

 Park, because, in spite of the tradition that says he 

 did so, the Park did not come into the family's posses- 

 sion till eighteen years after the poet's death, but 

 I can see Burke, and Johnson, and Goldsmith, 



Littlecote. 



