It was in the flamboyant days of George the Fourth that the “Newhaven” inn arose, and his Majesty himself stayed one night “under its roof,” as the guide-books carefully say, lest perhaps we might suspect him of sleeping on the tiles. Those were the days when travelling Majesties still did picturesque things, more or less in the manner of the Caliphs in the _Arabian Nights_; and the great George, by some mysterious exercise of kingly prerogative, granted the house a perpetual licence, by way of signifying his content with the entertainment provided. That perpetual licence must once have been a very valuable asset of the Manners family, for the house was, in the merry days of the road, one of the best-appointed and most thriving posting and coaching establishments of the age; but in these times it is very quiet and very empty, save for the great Newhaven horse- and cattle-fairs, in spring and autumn, now the two red-letter days of the year for the once-busy hostelry. From a perpetual licence to a licence for one day in every year is a curious extreme, afforded by the village of King’s Cliffe, Northants, where any householder, under the terms of a charter granted in the reign of King John, may, if he so pleases, on the day of the annual autumn fair, sell beer; provided that a branch of a tree is suspended over the doorway, after the manner of the “bush” anciently displayed by the ale-stakes. Among London suburban inns demolished in recent times and rebuilt is the “White Hart,” on Hackney Marshes: that sometime desolate and remote place of footpads and swamps. To-day “Hackney Marshes” is merely a name. Little in the actual appearance of the place, unless it be in midst of some particularly mild and wet winter, suggests a marsh, and the broad level stretch of grass is, in fact, in process of becoming a conventional London park. Through the midst of the Marsh flows the river Lea, and the several “cuts” that have been at different times made for commercial purposes divide up the surrounding wastes with foul, canal-like reaches. [Illustration: “NEWHAVEN” INN.]