<g>Classical Scenes.</g>--To every reader of Shakspeare the names of Gadshill, Falstaff, and Prince Hal, will conjure up many ludicrous associations; and few travellers will enter Rochester from the west, without a short halt on this poetical ground,--the spot where Prince Henry and his dissolute associates robbed the Sandwich carriers, and the auditors who were carrying money to the royal exchequer. Theobold mentions that he had read an old play, in which the scene opens with Prince Henry’s robberies, and Gadshill is there named as one of the gang.[151] A comfortable inn, with a characteristic sign of Falstaff on one side, and Prince Hal on the other, invites him to alight for half an hour, and over a “cup of sack” peruse that mirth-moving scene in the first Part of “Henry the Fourth,” which has conferred immortality on the spot:-- ACT II. SCENE II.--_The Road by Gadshill._ _Enter_ PRINCE HENRY _and_ POINS; BARDOLPH _and_ PETO _at some distance_. _Poins._ Come, shelter, shelter; I have removed Falstaff’s horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet. _Pr. Henry._ Stand close. [_Enter_ FALSTAFF.] _Falst._ Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins! _Pr. Henry._ Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal: what a brawling dost thou keep! _Falst._ Where’s Poins, Hal? _Pr. Henry._ He is walked up to the top of the hill; I’ll go seek him. [_Pretends to seek_ POINS.] _Falst._ I am accursed to rob in that thief’s company; the rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the squire further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I ’scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have foresworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years; and yet I am bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal hath not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hang’d; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines.--Poins! Hal! a plague upon you both. Bardolph! Peto! I’ll starve ere I rob a foot further. An ’twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is three score and ten miles afoot with me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon’t, when thieves cannot be true to one another! [_His companions whistle._] Whew! a plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues: give me my horse, and be hanged! _Pr. Henry._ Peace, ye fat-guts! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers. _Falst._ Have ye any levers to lift me up again, being down? ’Sblood, I’ll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?