"No more pleasant week-end resort than the Burford Bridge Hotel--'providing always,' as the lawyers might say, that you do not make your week-end coincide with one of Sir John Lubbock's popular carnivals. Then----! But enough, enough. Hie we onwards, casting just one backward glance towards that hotel which was just a decent road-side inn when Keats wrote 'Endymion' there, coming in from moonlit walks across Box Hill, inspired to heaven knows what unwritten poesy. Also, the Burford Bridge Hotel has a claim upon the patriotic Englishman, who, thank goodness, is not extinct, although Mr. Grant Allen thinks the generous feeling of patriotism is unfashionable. For here Nelson slept during his last night on English soil. The next day he embarked from Portsmouth, and--the rest is history! "Dorking at last! We pull up, with steaming cattle, at the old 'White Horse,' where lunch is spread. We speculate upon the theory (one of many) that the real original Weller inhabited here, but come, of course, to no conclusion, where so many learned doctors in Dickens disagree. We adventure down to Castle Mill; yea, even to the picturesque Brockham Bridge below the town, beyond the foot of Box Hill. The town of Dorking stretches out its more modern part in this direction, halting within sight of Castle Mill, whence its _avant-garde_ is seen stalking horribly across the meadows. For the rest, Dorking is pleasant enough, though containing little of interest; and the parish church of St. Martin has been rebuilt. Yet the long High Street still contains a few quaint frontages of the seventeenth century, and our halting-place has a curious sign of wrought ironwork. Those who do not pin their faith to the 'White Horse' as the original of the 'Marquis of Granby' in the 'Pickwick Papers,' elect to swear by the 'Red Lion,' once owned by a coach-proprietor who _might_ have sat for Samivel's father. [Sidenote: _LITERARY LIGHTS_] "The town and district have, indeed, many literary associations. Some of these authors are now forgotten, or were never of more than local celebrity; but what generation will that be which forgets old John Evelyn, the diarist and author of 'Sylva,' and many other works, who must often have ridden into the town from Wotton House, near by? He was a friend of another congenial worthy, John Aubrey to wit. That amusingly quaint, but not strictly reliable, old chronicler, says of this town:--'Dorking is celebrated for fowls. The kine hereabout are of a sandy colour; the women, especially those about the hill, have no roses in their cheeks.' I do not notice that, however true may be his remarks about the fowls. [Illustration: BROCKHAM BRIDGE.] [Illustration: Castle Mill.]