chapter 8, Book 2.) It may be also remembered as the hotel at which was

celebrated the wedding dinner of _Mr. and Mrs. Rokesmith_ aforesaid, “dear little Pa” being the honoured guest of that blissful opportunity. We may here also recollect the dignified bearing of the head waiter—The Archbishop of Greenwich—“a solemn gentleman in black clothes and a white cravat, who looked much more like a clergyman than _the_ clergyman, and seemed to have mounted a great deal higher in the church.”

Leaving GREENWICH, a short ride of twenty minutes (six miles), following the course of the river, will bring us to the CHARING CROSS TERMINUS, in central London.

RAMBLE VII Excursion to Canterbury and Dover

Route by London, Chatham and Dover Railway, _viâ_ Sittingbourne and Faversham to Canterbury; The Queen’s Head Inn, “the little hotel” patronised by the Micawbers—By Mercery Lane and Christ Church Gate to Cathedral Close for King’s School, the Establishment at which David Copperfield was educated—Dr. Strong’s House—The Fleur de Lys Hotel; Mr. Dick’s stopping-place at Canterbury—The George and Dragon Inn; the old London Coach Office—Palace Street and Church of St. Alphege; the scene of Dr. Strong’s marriage to Miss Annie Markleham—No. 65 North Lane, the “’umble dwelling” of Uriah Heep, afterwards the residence of the Micawber Family—71 St. Dunstan Street; Mr. Wickfield’s house, and Home of Agnes—Canterbury to Dover—Corner of Church and Castle Streets, Market Place; David’s resting-place—Priory Hill, Stanley Mount; Miss Betsy Trotwood’s Residence—“The King’s Head”; Mr. Lorry, Lucie Manette, and Miss Pross—The Staplehurst Disaster—Postscript to “Our Mutual Friend.”

The excursion proposed in Ramble VI. to Chatham, Rochester, Gadshill, etc. (see page 82), could be advantageously extended to include CANTERBURY and DOVER, for visiting the localities in these towns associated with the history of David Copperfield.

Beyond Chatham the journey is continued on the LONDON, CHATHAM AND DOVER RAILWAY, by three minor stations to SITTINGBOURNE, formerly a favourite resting-place for pilgrims (as its name would seem to indicate) _en route_ for Canterbury; but the modern mode of travel only now necessitates a halt of twenty minutes. Passing TEYNSHAM and FAVERSHAM, the train proceeds by the intermediate station of SELLING, to the fair old city of

CANTERBURY,

pleasantly situated on the banks of the Stour. Seat of the Primate of England, where, as Mr. Micawber writes, “the society may be described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the clerical.” A quaint and quiet cathedral town, redolent with fragrant memories of _Agnes Wickfield_, fairest type of English womanhood—her father, and friends.

Proceeding from the station towards the Cathedral, by CASTLE STREET, we reach the old Roman road of WATLING STREET (extending from Chester to Dover), at the south corner of which (right), and facing ST. MARGARET STREET, stands the “Queen’s Head Inn.” This is “the little hotel” patronised by Mr. and Mrs. Micawber on the occasion of their first visit to Canterbury, as related in chapter 17 of “David Copperfield”—“Somebody turns up.”

“It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he occupied a little room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and strongly flavoured with tobacco smoke. I think it was over the kitchen, because a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through the chinks in the floor, and there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. I know it was near the bar, on account of the smell of spirits and jingling of glasses. Here, recumbent on a small sofa, underneath a picture of a race-horse, with her head close to the fire, and her feet pushing the mustard off the dumb-waiter at the other end of the room, was Mrs. Micawber, to whom Mr. Micawber entered first, saying, ‘My dear, allow me to introduce to you a pupil of Dr. Strong’s.’”

It will be remembered that the amiable lady thus referred to, here confidentially explained to David the reason of their visit to this part of the country—

“‘Mr. Micawber was induced to think, on inquiry, that there might be an opening for a man of his talent in the Medway Coal Trade. Then, as Mr. Micawber very properly said, the first step to be taken clearly was to come and see the Medway; which we came and saw. I say ‘we,’ Master Copperfield, ‘for I never will,’ said Mrs. Micawber with emotion, ‘I never will desert Mr. Micawber. . . . Being so near here, Mr. Micawber was of opinion that it would be rash not to come on and see the Cathedral—firstly, on account of its being so well worth seeing, and our never having seen it; and, secondly, on account of the great probability of something turning up in a cathedral town.’”

We may also recollect the dinner and convivial evening thereafter, celebrated two days later at this address, when David attended as the honoured guest of the occasion—

“We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge, and a pudding. There was wine, and there was strong ale; and after dinner Mrs. Micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands. Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw him such good company. He made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if it had been varnished all over. He got cheerfully sentimental about the town, and proposed success to it, observing that Mrs. Micawber and himself had been made extremely snug and comfortable there, and that he never should forget the agreeable hours they had passed in Canterbury.”

Later on there is recorded in the Copperfield autobiography (chapter 42) how David, accompanied by his aunt and friends—Messrs. Dick and Traddles—sojourned for the night at this same hotel. They had arrived at Canterbury by the Dover Mail, as desired by Mr. Micawber, in readiness to assist the next day at the memorable “Explosion” which resulted in the final discomfiture of _Uriah Heep_, “the Forger and the Cheat”—

“At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to await him, which we got into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night, I found a letter, importing that he would appear in the morning punctually at half-past nine. After which, we went shivering at that uncomfortable hour to our respective beds, through various close passages, which smelt as if they had been steeped for ages in a solution of soup and stables.”

Following the course of St. Margaret Street northward, and passing (left) the old CHURCH OF ST. MARGARET—recently restored by Sir Gilbert Scott—we soon arrive at the central main thoroughfare, which here divides the town, extending from St. Dunstan’s Church (west) to the New Dover Road, leaving Canterbury on the east.

Crossing the HIGH STREET, and continuing northward through the narrow thoroughfare of MERCERY LANE (on the opposite side)—once the resort of the many pilgrims who came aforetime to worship at the shrine of Thomas-à-Becket—we enter the precincts of the Cathedral by CHRIST CHURCH GATE (16th century).

Turning to the right within the Close, and passing the secluded residences of several “grave and reverend seigniors,” we may find, on the farther side, King’s School, an educational establishment of good repute and old foundation, pleasantly and quietly situated. The school is supervised by certain “worthy and approved good masters,” successors to the amiable DOCTOR STRONG and assistants, under whose careful tutorship David Copper-field was educated after his adoption by Miss Betsy Trotwood. In the commencement of chapter 16 of his autobiography, David thus describes the place:—

“Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I went, accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies—a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot—and was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong.”

Doctor Strong’s Private Residence—at which “some of the higher scholars boarded”—is an antiquated house, situated at the corner of LADY’S GREEN (No. 1), at a short distance eastward. Here David was a frequent visitor, learning particulars of the Doctor’s history, and becoming intimate with the various personages therewith connected. Pleasant reminiscences of the doings and sayings of _Mrs. Markleham_—“the Old Soldier” (so called by the boys “on account of her generalship, and the skill with which she marshalled great forces of relations against the Doctor”)—the tender associations which cluster round the story of _Annie_, the good doctor’s true-hearted wife; with a casual recollection of the family cousin—_Mr. Jack Maldon_—(no better than he should be)—may combine to enhance the interest of a visit to this old-fashioned but comfortable home.

Crossing the LADY’S GREEN towards the gate of the ancient AUGUSTINIAN MONASTERY, and proceeding onwards by MONASTERY STREET, we may find at the end and corner of the street, on the left hand, a noteworthy antique-looking house, partly incorporated with a second gate of the old Monastery, at present the residence of a gentleman of the medical profession. In bygone time this house was a point of considerable attraction to David during his later school-days at Canterbury, as being the home of “The Eldest Miss Larkins,” his second love. In chapter 18, as we may remember, is contained a very pleasant piece of natural sketching, entitled “A Retrospect,” comprising, _inter alia_, the story of his youthful passion. David says:—

“I worship the eldest Miss Larkins. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a tall, dark, black-eyed, fine figure of a woman. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a chicken, for the youngest Miss Larkins is not that, and the eldest must be three or four years older. Perhaps the eldest Miss Larkins may be about thirty. My passion for her is beyond all bounds. . . . Everything that belongs to her, or is connected with her, is precious to me. Mr. Larkins (a gruff old gentleman with a double chin, and one of his eyes immovable in his head) is fraught with interest to me. . . . I regularly take walks outside Mr. Larkins’s house in the evening, though it cuts me to the heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up in the drawing-room, where the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp. I even walk, on two or three occasions, in a sickly spooney manner, round and round the house after the family are gone to bed, wondering which is the eldest Miss Larkins’s chamber (and pitching, I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins’s instead), wishing that a fire would burst out; that the assembled crowd would stand appalled; that I, dashing through them with a ladder, might rear it against her window, save her in my arms, go back for something she had left behind, and perish in the flames.”

The Drawing-Room here mentioned is situated above the old Monastery Gate, between the two towers which stand on either side. We may recollect it was here that David, having received an invitation to a private ball given at the Larkins’s, enjoyed his first dance with “his dear divinity;” afterwards being introduced to _Mr. Chestle_, a hop-grower from the neighbourhood of Ashford, “a friend of the family,” and—alas for David!—the future husband of the eldest Miss Larkins—

“I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins! I don’t know where, among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about in space with a blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium. . . . I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the waltz, when she comes to me again, with a plain, elderly gentleman, who has been playing whist all night, upon her arm, and says, ‘Oh, here is my bold friend! Mr. Chestle wants to know you, Mr. Copperfield.’ I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much gratified. . . . I think I am in a happy dream. I waltz again with the eldest Miss Larkins. She says I waltz so well! I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss, and waltz in imagination, all night long, with my arm round the blue waist of my dear divinity.”

Proceeding westward, we pass along the opposite roadway which faces the house above referred to, by Church Street St. Paul, and Burgate Street, to the Old Cathedral entrance.

As the Rambler returns, again traversing Mercery Lane, there may be noted on the left—No. 14—a respectable Butcher’s Shop, now in the keeping of Mr. Cornes. It is evident from its position, near Christ Church Gate, that this was the establishment where flourished, in days of yore, that obnoxious “young butcher” who was “the terror of the youth of Canterbury,” and the especial enemy of the pupils at King’s School. In