MARLBOROUGH 187 



here. No one comes here nowadays with vast 

 retinues of lackeys, and the man does not exist, be he 

 Peer or Commoner, who could dare be so offensive as 

 that haughty and insufferable personage, the aforesaid. 

 Earl of Chatham, who, nursing his gout at the 

 "Castle" Hotel in 1762, practically converted the 

 place to his own exclusive use, regardless of the com- 

 fort or convenience of any one else. He would not 

 stay at the " Castle," he said, storming at the terrified 

 landlord, unless all the servants of the establishment 

 were forthwith clothed in the C*hatham livery. And 

 so clothed they were, and the " Castle " became for 

 some weeks what it had been before the strange 

 workinofs of fate had converted it into the finest of 

 all the inns along the road to P>ath — the private 

 residence of a nobleman. 



There are breakneck streets in Marlborough, for the 

 town, although built in the valley, has the entrance 

 to its principal street carried round the spur of a 

 foothill so that one side of the thoroughfare is con- 

 siderably lower than the other, and the humorous 

 among Marlborough's neighbours declare that bicycles 

 are the only vehicles that can be driven round by the 

 Town Hall without upsetting. But, in spite of what 

 Cobbett says in his " Rural Rides," that "Marlborough 

 is an ill-looking place enough," this street is the 

 finest, broadest, neatest, and most picturesque of any 

 along these hundred odd miles of highway. Think of 

 all the adjectives that make for admiration, and you 

 have scarce employed one that overrates the dignified 

 and stately air of the High Street of Marlborough. 

 The width of the road is accounted for by its having 



