"Sponge me well, and keep me clean,
And I'll throw a ball to Calais green."
There is, indeed, an inscription on it in the Dutch language, but though it commemorates the destructive power of this long piece of ordnance, it says nothing which implies that its range was so extraordinary. The distance from Dover Castle to the church of Notre-Dame, at Calais, is rather more than twenty-six miles. This gun was cast at Utrecht in 1544, by James Tolkys, and the verses inscribed on its breech have been translated as follows:—
"O'er hill and dale I throw my ball;
Breaker, my name, of mound and wall."
About a mile to the southward of the town is the celebrated cliff which is supposed to have been described by Shakspeare in King Lear.
"Gloster.—Dost thou know Dover?
Edgar.—Ay, master.
Gloster.—There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully in the confined deep:
Bring me to the very brim of it.
* * * * *
Edgar.—Come on, sir; here's the place:—stand
Still.—How fearful
And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eye so low!
The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: halfway down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark,
Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong."
