his 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 f