November 7.—­Off at seven; breakfasted at Beaumont, and pushed on to Airaines.  This being a forced march, we had bad lodgings, wet wood, uncomfortable supper, damp beds, and an extravagant charge.  I was never colder in my life than when I waked with the sheets clinging round me like a shroud.

November 8.—–­ We started at six in the morning, having no need to be called twice, so heartily was I weary of my comfortless couch.  Breakfasted at Abbeville; then pushed on to Boulogne, expecting to find the packet ready to start next morning, and so to have had the advantage of the easterly tide.  But, lo ye! the packet was not to sail till next day.  So after shrugging our shoulders—­being the solace a la mode de France—­and recruiting ourselves with a pullet and a bottle of Chablis a la mode d’Angleterre, we set off for Calais after supper, and it was betwixt three and four in the morning before we got to Dessein’s, when the house was full, or reported to be so.  We could only get two wretched brick-paved garrets, as cold and moist as those of Airaines, instead of the comforts which we were received with at our arrival.  But I was better prepared.  Stripped off the sheets, and lay down in my dressing-gown, and so roughed it out—­tant bien que mal.

November 9.—­At four in the morning we were called; at six we got on board the packet, where I found a sensible and conversible man—­a very pleasant circumstance.  The day was raw and cold, the wind and tide surly and contrary, the passage slow, and Anne, contrary to her wont, excessively sick.  We had little trouble at the Custom House, thanks to the secretary of the Embassy, Mr. Jones, who gave me a letter to Mr. Ward. [At Dover] Mr. Ward came with the Lieutenant-Governor of the castle, and wished us to visit that ancient fortress.  I regretted much that our time was short, and the weather did not admit of our seeing views, so we could only thank the gentlemen in declining their civility.

The castle, partly ruinous, seems to have been very fine.  The Cliff, to which Shakespeare gave his immortal name, is, as all the world knows, a great deal lower than his description implies.  Our Dover friends, justly jealous of the reputation of their cliff, impute this diminution of its consequence to its having fallen in repeatedly since the poet’s time.  I think it more likely that the imagination of Shakespeare, writing perhaps at a period long after he may have seen the rock, had described it such as he conceived it to have been.  Besides, Shakespeare was born in a flat country, and Dover Cliff is at least lofty enough to have suggested the exaggerated features to his fancy.  At all events, it has maintained its reputation better than the Tarpeian Rock;—­no man could leap from it and live.

Left Dover after a hot luncheon about four o’clock, and reached London at half-past three in the morning.  So adieu to la belle France, and welcome merry England.[400]