The most ancient and venerable object here--it is the oldest building in England, supposed to have been built A.D. 49--is the Roman pharos, or lighthouse, one of two that once guided the ships of the Roman emperors into the haven that was situated where the Market-place of Dover now stands. The other, of which only the platform and one fragment of stone have been found, was situated on the western heights. The fellow-tower at Boulogne, the _Gessoriacum_ of the Romans, still remains. The rugged, roofless tower of this venerable beacon curiously neighbours the quaint early church of St. Mary-within-the-Castle, itself of great and uncertain age, and both contrast strangely with the modern evidences of casemated batteries and the sentry-go of soldiers. Many generations have tinkered and repaired the Roman pharos, whose original tufa blocks and courses of red tiles still defy the elements and the ravages of mischievous hands, while the casing of flint and pebbles set in concrete, added some two centuries ago, long since began to decay. The Roman windows were altered by Gundulf, and the upper story would seem to be the work of Sir Thomas Erpingham, Constable of Dover Castle in the reign of Henry the Fifth, for his sculptured shield of arms appears on it. The church of St. Mary in 1860 experienced a narrow escape from complete destruction by the War Office, and was only with difficulty rescued by dint of urgent protests from antiquaries. The Department has experienced the like elsewhere, and doubtless wishes all antiquaries at the devil. The building had at that time been reduced to the condition of a coal-bunker, a process begun about a hundred and fifty years before, when it had been ruthlessly cleared out and converted into a storehouse. Among other ejected objects was the monument of the Earl of Northampton, already noticed at Greenwich. The building was opened again in 1862, after restoration. The twenty-four-foot long brass cannon within the castle grounds, known as “Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket-pistol,” is by far the best-known and most popular object here. It is not given to every one to appreciate the Roman pharos or the Norman architecture of the keep, but this long, slender piece of ordnance makes a direct and easily understood appeal to the sympathies of the crowd, largely on account of the rhyme associated with it, supposed to be a translation of the inscription in Low Dutch that is to be seen on the cannon itself, amid the arabesque devices that decorate its whole length. This familiar jingle runs thus: “Load me well and keep me clean, And I’ll carry a ball to Calais Green.” It could, of course, do nothing of the kind, nor anything like it; and the inscription says nothing of the sort. Here it is, in its original grotesqueness: “Breeck scuret al muer ende wal bin ic geheten, Deor berch en dal boert minen bal van mi gesmetem.” The literal translation is: