Further on, near the end of the pier, is the West Gate, under which Henry V.’s men-at-arms and archers clanked out on their way to Agincourt. Suppose that you have seen The well-appointed king at Hampton pier Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet With silken streamers the young Phœbus fanning: Play with your fancies, and in them behold Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing; Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails, Borne with the invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea, Breasting the lofty surge: O do but think You stand upon the rivage and behold A city on the inconstant billows dancing; For so appears this fleet majestical, Holding due course to Harfleur. Such a floating city as Shakespeare saw here in his mind’s eye, would seem but a hamlet beside the streets of craft from all the world that now crowd Southampton docks. Behind them, near the foot of High Street, is a building which, if tradition lie not, may boast itself the oldest house in England, for, stable as it is now, it sets up to be a remnant of King Canute’s residence, who on the shore hereabouts, perhaps enacted his famous scene of commanding the waves, more effectually restrained by the heroes of modern industry; but on that oft-told tale Leslie Stephen drily remarks, “that an anecdote is simply the polite name of a lie.” From the Quay quarter, what a well-known novelist styles the “brightest, airiest, lightest, prettiest High Street in England,” leads up to the Bargate, imposing survival of mediæval architecture, with which Southampton is proud to hamper her busy main thoroughfare, long after prosaic Londoners have banished their obstructive Temple Bar. The long street, hence known as “Above Bar,” goes out between pleasant parks, then as a lordly avenue that begins one of the finest high-roads in the kingdom, running on to Winchester. As this avenue is approached, on the left stands a building that should be viewed with grateful respect by all conscientious tourists and their guides, since it is the headquarters of the Ordnance Survey maps. Further on, beside the road, is reached Southampton Common, one of the prettiest natural parks and playgrounds at the gate of any great town, seeming to be, what indeed it is, a half cleared bit of the New Forest.