neighbourhood or London, and, like Edwin Drood, is so full of Rochester and London that either book might equally with his terrible story of the French Revolution have been called A Tale of Two Cities. Many characters in the earlier and later books of Charles Dickens are, it is well known, taken from actual life, and have been thought by some still living in these towns to be much too easily recognizable to be pleasant. Names of places, too, are occasionally used in works that do not otherwise touch on Rochester district at all; for instance, in Bleak House, a rookery in London is called " Tom-all-alone's," which to thousands not in the secret may seem an unmeaning name. It is really the name of an outlying district of Chatham, at the back of the Lines, and is now being nearly all absorbed in the dockyard extension. There is or was lately here a tavern also called "Tom-all-alone's." Of the names of characters throughout the works of Dickens, many are drawn from these towns. Hubble, Snodgrass, Jasper, and many others are well-known local names; Caleb Pordage and Fanny Dorritt lie side by side in the cathedral graveyard; and there is a Weller, a greengrocer, in High Street, Chatham.

In the last work of Dickens, Rochester figures again as Cloisterham, and there are several fine passages in the fragment relating to his favourite spot. In a letter to Forster, written some six years before his death, he says: "I have grown hard to satisfy, and write very slowly." There is, however, no doubt that this work shows no falling off either in invention or descriptive power; and although his statement to his friend, "that he had grown hard to satisfy," is fully borne out by a careful examination of the manuscript, where erasures and interlineations are numerous, I think few will doubt that this, his last work, is one of his best, if not the best of all. It may be noted, too, that towards the close of his life, Charles Dickens seems to have been more frequently in the immediate precincts of the cathedral than ever before; this may very probably have been in order to make a closer study of its surroundings, for use as the story developed itself. The apparitor of the cathedral (the Mr. Tope of the tale) told me that "he often saw Mr. Dickens about the cathedral during the last few months of his life; and for some time he took no particular notice of him, not knowing who he was." And to my remark, "Ah, but he was taking notice of you !" he replied "Very true, sir, very true," and

seemed pleased with my recognition of his portrait. The curious character, Durdles, who has only recently disappeared from the neighbourhood, was from the life, as was also, I am told, to some extent, Mr. Sapsea. There is plenty of good comedy in Edwin Drood, but it is rather noticeable for a quieter and more thoughtfully subdued tone throughout. The first extract describes Eastgate House, or the Nun's House of the tale, the High Street, and Mr. Sapsea's premises. Mr. Hull's drawings of the High Street and Eastgate give capital views of this part of Rochester.

A drowsy city, Cloisterham, whose inhabitants seem to suppose, with an inconsistency more strange than rare, that all its changes lie behind it, and that there are no more to come. A queer moral to derive from antiquity, yet older than any traceable antiquity.

So silent are the streets of Cloisterham (though prone to echo on the smallest provocation), that of a summer day the sunblinds of its shops scarce dare to flap in the south wind; while the sun-browned tramps who pass along and stare, quicken their limp a little, that they may the sooner get beyond the confines of its oppressive respectability.

In a word, a city of another and a bygone time is Cloisterham, with its hoarse cathedral bell, its hoarse rooks hovering about the cathedral tower, its hoarser and less distinct rooks in the stalls far beneath.

In the midst of Cloisterham stands the Nun's House; a venerable brick edifice, whose present appellation is doubtless derived from the legend of its conventual uses. On the trim gate enclosing its old courtyard is a resplendent brass plate flashing forth the legend "Seminary for Young Ladies. Miss Twinkleton." The house front is so old and worn, and the brass plate is so shining and staring, that the general result has reminded imaginative strangers of a battered old beau with a large modern eyeglass stuck in his blind eye.

Mr. Sapsea's premises are in the High Street, over against the Nun's House. They are of about the period of the Nun's House, irregularly modernized here and there, as steadily deteriorating generations found, more and more, that they preferred air and light to fever and the plague. Over the doorway is a wooden effigy, about half life size, representing Mr. Sapsea's father, in a curly wig and toga, in the act of selling. The chastity of the idea, and the natural appearance of the little finger, hammer, and pulpit, have been much admired.

The figure of the auctioneer just mentioned (which I well remember) disappeared some twenty-five years since, but the description of it, and it is said of the auctioneer also, was true to life; certain it is that, when Charles Dickens died, the successors of this very auctioneer, Messrs. Thomas and Homan, were employed by the executors to sell the furniture and effects at Gad's Hill Place. Here follows a description of Minor Canon Row, or,