The only records of this long-superseded mode of communication are now to be traced on the signboards of wayside public-houses. Many of the old roads still exist in Yorkshire and Lancashire; but all that remains of the former traffic is the pack-horse still painted on village sign-boards -- things as retentive of odd bygone facts as the picture-writing of the ancient Mexicans.*[20] Footnotes for Chapter II. *[1] King Henry the Fourth (Part I.), Act II. Scene 1. *[2] Part of the riding road along which the Queen was accustomed to pass on horseback between her palaces at Greenwich and Eltham is still in existence, a little to the south of Morden College, Blackheath. It winds irregularly through the fields, broad in some places, and narrow in others. Probably it is very little different from what it was when used as a royal road. It is now very appropriately termed "Muddy Lane." *[3] 'Depeches de La Mothe Fenelon,' 8vo., 1858. Vol. i. p. 27. *[4] Nichols's ' Progresses,' vol. ii., 309. *[5] The title of Mace's tract (British Museum) is "The Profit, Conveniency, and Pleasure for the whole nation: being a short rational Discourse lately presented to his Majesty concerning the Highways of England: their badness, the causes thereof, the reasons of these causes, the impossibility of ever having them well mended according to the old way of mending: but may most certainly be done, and for ever so maintained (according to this NEW WAY) substantially and with very much ease, &c., &c. Printed for the public good in the year 1675." *[6] See Archaelogia, xx., pp. 443-76. *[7] "4th May, 1714. Morning: we dined at Grantham, had the annual solemnity (this being the first time the coach passed the road in May), and the coachman and horses being decked with ribbons and flowers, the town music and young people in couples before us; we lodged at Stamford, a scurvy, dear town. 5th May: had other passengers, which, though females, were more chargeable with wine and brandy than the former part of the journey, wherein we had neither; but the next day we gave them leave to treat themselves." --Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. ii., 207. *[8] "May 22, 1708. At York. Rose between three and four, the coach being hasted by Captain Crome (whose company we had) upon the Queen's business, that we got to Leeds by noon; blessed be God for mercies to me and my poor family."--Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. ii., 7. *[9] Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. i.,295. *[10] Waylen's 'Marlborough.' *[11] Reprinted in the 'Harleian Miscellany,' vol. viii., p. 547. supposed to have been written by one John Gressot, of the Charterhouse.