The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore HookHook, Theodore Edward
General
The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore Hook
Hook, Theodore Edward
English wit and humor
"When we came to the Green Man at Blackheath we had an opportunity
of noticing the errors of former travellers, for the heath is green,
and the man is black; Mr. Fulmer endeavoured to account for this, by
saying that Mr. Colman has discovered that Moors being black, and
Heaths being a kind of Moor, he looks upon the confusion of words as
the cause of the mistake.
"N.B. Colman is the eminent Itinerary Surgeon, who constantly resides
at St. Pancras.
"As we went near Woolwich we saw at a distance the artillery officers
on a common, a firing away with their bombs in mortars like any thing.
"At Dartford they make gunpowder; here we changed horses, at the
inn we saw a most beautiful Rhoderick Random in a pot, covered with
flowers, it is the finest I ever saw, except those at Dropmore. [Note
(Rhododendron).]
"When we got to Rochester we went to the Crown Inn and had a cold
collection: the charge was absorbent--I had often heard my poor dear
husband talk of the influence of the Crown, and a Bill of Wrights,
but I had no idea what it really meant till we had to pay one.
"As we passed near Chatham I saw several Pitts, and Mr. Fulmer
showed me a great many buildings--I believe he said they were
fortyfications, but I think there must have been near fifty of
them--he also shewed us the Lines at Chatham, which I saw quite
distinctly, with the clothes drying on them. Rochester was remarkable
in King Charles's time, for being a very witty and dissolute place,
as I have read in books.
"At Canterbury we stopped ten minutes to visit all the remarkable
buildings and curiosities in it, and about its neighbourhood;
the church is beautiful: when Oliver Cromwell conquered William
the Third, he perverted it into a stable--the stalls are still
standing--the old Virgin who shewed us the church, wore buckskin
breeches and powder--he said it was an archypiscopal sea, but I saw
no sea, nor do I think it possible he could see it either, for it is
at least seventeen miles off--we saw Mr. Thomas à Beckett's tomb--my
poor husband was extremely intimate with the old gentleman, and one
of his nephews, a very nice man, who lives near Golden-square, dined
with us twice, I think, in London--in Trinity Chapel is the monument
of Eau de Cologne, just as it is now exhibiting at the Diarrea in the
Regent's Park.
"It was late when we got to Dover: we walked about while our dinner
was preparing, looking forward to our snug _tête-à-tête_ of three--we
went to look at the sea, so called, perhaps, from the uninterrupted
view one has, when upon it--it was very curious to see the locks to
keep in the water here, and the keys which are on each side of them,
all ready, I suppose, to open them if they were wanted.
"Mr. Fulmer looked at a high place, and talked of Shakspeare, and
said out of his own head, these beautiful lines.--
"Half way down
Hangs one that gathers camphire, dreadful trade."
"This, I think it but right to say, I did not myself see.--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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