NEWGIN BRIDGE,
where we understood we should meet with every thing comfortable; but, to our disappointment, we found a most miserable, dirty pot-house, destitute of even the common comforts of life. We were literally obliged to stoop, in order to gain access to the Kitchen, which contained a small bed, and a few chairs; through this an elderly woman conduced us to what she distinguished by the name of a Parlour: in this room the furniture consisted of two beds, a dirty table, and a few chairs. With disgust we left this miserable hovel, and contented ourselves with a bason of milk: we declined eating the bread, or rather oatmeal cake, which was of the coarsest and hardest nature. I here recollected Shenstone’s complimentary lines on an Inn, but could not apply them on the present occasion:
“Whoe’er has travell’d life’s dull round,
Where’er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think that he has found
The warmest welcome at an Inn.” [49]
The road from Haverford to Newgin we found very uninteresting; and the shell of