"Hops, carp, pickerel, and beer,Came into England all in one year."
Tusser in hisHondreth Good Points of Husbandrie, published in 1557, gives sundry directions for the cultivation of hops, and quaintly advocates their use as follows:—
"The hop for his profit I thus do exalt,It strengtheneth drink, and it savoureth malt;And being well brewed, long kept it will last,And drawing abide—if you draw not too fast."
The hop has many varieties—thirty or more—among which may be mentioned prolifics, bramblings, goldings, common goldings, old goldings, Canterbury goldings, Meopham goldings, etc. When once planted they last for a hundred years, but some growers replace them every ten years or sooner.
The principal enemies of the hop are "mould" caused by the fungusSphærotheca Castagnei, and several kinds of insects, especially the "green fly,"Aphis humuli, but the high wind is most to be dreaded. It tears the hop-bines from the poles and throws the poles down, which in falling crush other bines, and thus bruise the hops and prevent their growth, besides obstructing the passage of air and sunlight, and causing the development of mould or mildew. The remedy for mould is dusting with sulphur, and for the green fly, syringing with tobacco or quassia water and soap, "Hop-wash," as it is called. Sometimes the lady-bird (Coccinella septempunctata)is present in sufficient numbers to consume the green fly. Very little can be done to obviate the effects of the wind, but a protective fence of the wild hop—called a "lee" or "loo"—is sometimes put up round very choice plantations.
The hop-poles, the preparation of which constitutes a distinct industry, are either of larch, Spanish chestnut, ash, willow, birch, or beech—larch or chestnut being preferred. Women clear the poles of the bark, and men sharpen them at one end, which is dipped in creosote before being used. The ground is cleared, and the poles are stuck in against the old plants in February or March.
We are informed that the hop-picking is much looked forward to by the villagers with pleasure as the means of supplying them with a little purse for clothing, etc., against winter-time. Each family or companionship earns from thirty shillings to two pounds per week during the season.
We proceed on our excursion, and pass Faversham, which stands in a rather picturesque bit of country some way up Faversham Creek, and is sheltered on the west by a ridge of wooded hills where the hop country ceases, as the railway bends north-easterly for Margate and Ramsgate. Whitstable, the next station passed, is famous for the most delicate oysters in the market, the fishery of which is regulated by an annual court; and it is said that one grower alone sends fifty thousand barrels a year to London from this district. We speculate whether these delicious molluscs were supplied at that famous supper described in the thirty-ninth chapter ofThe Old Curiosity Shop, at which were present Kit, his mother, the baby, little Jacob, and Barbara, after the night at the play, when Kit told the waiter "to bring three dozen of his largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp about it," andfulfilled his promise "to let little Jacob know what oysters meant." All along, as the railway winds from Whitstable to Margate, glimpses of the sea are visible, and vary our excursion pleasantly.
The next noteworthy place we pass is Reculver—the ancient Regulbium—which, according to Mr. Phillips Bevan, is "mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus as being garrisoned by the first cohort of Brabantois Belgians. After the Romans, it was occupied by the Saxon Ethelbert, who is said to have occupied it as a palace, and to have been buried there." "The two picturesque towers" (quoting Bevan again), "which form so conspicuous a land and sea mark, are called 'The Sisters,' and are in reality modern-built by the Trinity Board in place of two erected traditionally by an Abbess of Faversham, who was wrecked here with her sister on their way to Broadstairs." The sea is fast encroaching on the land here, notwithstanding the erection of a large sea-wall and piles.
Passing Margate, we reach Broadstairs, about thirty-seven miles from Chatham. Broadstairs, immortalized inOur English Watering Place(which paper, says Forster, "appeared while I was there, and great was the local excitement"), is so inseparably associated with the earlier years of Charles Dickens's holiday-life, that it becomes most interesting to his admirers. Forster also says, "His later seaside holiday, September 1837, was passed at Broadstairs, as were those of many subsequent years; and the little watering-place has been made memorable by his pleasant sketch of it." At the time of his first visit (1837) he was writing a portion ofPickwick(Part 18); in 1838 part ofNicholas Nickleby;and in 1839 part ofThe Old Curiosity Shop. He was also there in 1840, 1841, and 1842, when writing theAmerican Notes;in1845 and 1847, when writingDombey and Son;in 1848 and 1850, when engaged onDavid Copperfield;and in 1851, when he was drafting the outlines ofBleak House. At the end of November of that year, when he had settled himself in his new London abode (Tavistock House), the book was begun, "and, as so generally happened with the more important incidents of his life, but always accidentally, begun on a Friday." After 1851, he returned not again to Broadstairs until 1859, when he paid his last visit to the place, and stayed a week there. The reason for his forsaking it was that it had become too noisy for him.
Broadstairs stands midway between the North Foreland and Ramsgate, and owes its name to the breadth of the sea-gate or "stair," which was originally defended by a gate or archway. An archway still survives on the road to the sea, and bears on it two inscriptions, (1) "Built by George Culenier about 1540"; (2) "Repaired by Sir John Henniker, Bart., 1795."
Broadstairs has good sands, precipitous chalk cliffs, and a very fine sea-view. The railway station is about a mile from the pier, and the town is approached by a well-kept road ("the main street of our watering-place. . . . You may know it by its being always stopped up with donkey chaises. Whenever you come here and see the harnessed donkeys eating clover out of barrows drawn completely across a narrow thoroughfare, you may be quite sure you are in our High Street"), with villas standing in their own gardens, most of which are brightened by summer flowers, notably the blue clematis (Clematis Jackmani) and by those charming seaside evergreens theEscalloniaand theEuonymus. As we near the sea, the shops become more numerous, and, on the right-hand side, we have no difficulty in finding (although we heard ithad been altered considerably) the house "No. 12, High Street," in which Dickens lived when he first visited Broadstairs. It is a plain little dwelling of single front, with a small parlour looking into the street, and has one story over—just the place that seems suited to the financial position of the novelist when he was commencing life. The house is now occupied by Mr. Bean, plumber and glazier, whose wife courteously shows us over it, and into the back yard and little garden, kindly giving us some pears from an old tree growing there, whereon we speculate as to whether Dickens himself had ever enjoyed the fruit from the same old tree. He appears to have lived in this house during his visits in 1837 and 1838. We ask the good lady if she is aware that Charles Dickens had formerly stayed in her house, and she replies in the negative, so we recommend her to get her husband to put up a tablet outside to the effect "Charles Dickens lived here, 1837," in imitation of the example of the Society of Arts in Furnival's Inn. There can be no doubt as to the identity of the house, for we take the precaution of ascertaining that the numbers have not been altered.
Our efforts to discover "Lawn House," where Dickens stayed on his visits from 1838 to 1848, are attended with some difficulty. First we are told it lay this way, then that, and then the other; a smart villa in a new road is pointed out to us as the object of our search, which we at once reject, as being too recent. But we are patient and persevering, feeling, with Mr. F.'s aunt, that "you can't make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing in it. You couldn't do it when your Uncle George was living; much less when he's dead!" Finally, we appeal to some one who looks like the "oldest inhabitant," and obtain something like a clue.We are eventually directed to a veritable "Lawn House," which is the last house on the left as you approach "Fort House." It must have changed in respect of its surroundings since forty years have passed, and although there is nothing outside to indicate it as such, it seems fair to assume that this was the house described in theLifeas "a small villa between the hill and the cornfield." The present occupier, who has no recollection of Dickens ever having been there, courteously allows us to see the hall and dining-room. The house is of course a great improvement upon "No 12, High Street."
A few steps from "Lawn House" lead us to the drive approaching "Fort House," pleasantly surrounded by a sloping lawn and shrubbery. John Forster, alluding to it in theLife, says:—
"The residence he most desired there, 'Fort House,' stood prominently at the top of a breezy hill on the road to Kingsgate, with a cornfield between it and the sea, and this in many subsequent years he always occupied."
Alas! the cornfield is no more, but "Fort House," or "Bleak House," as it is indifferently termed locally, remains intact. It is the most striking object of the place, standing on a cliff overlooking the sea, the harbour, and the town (made familiar by several photographs and engravings), with its curious verandahs and blinds, as seen in the vignette of J. C. Hotten's interesting book,Charles Dickens: The Story of His Life. An excellent photograph is published in the town, of which we are glad to secure a copy.
In the sixth chapter ofBleak Houseit is called "an old-fashioned house with three peaks in the roof in front, and a severe sweep leading to the porch." In the same chapter there is a minute account of the interior, too lengthy to be quoted;but the description does not resemble Fort House. We are kindly permitted by the occupier to see the study in which the novelist worked, a privilege long to be remembered. This room is approached by "a little staircase of shallow steps" from the first floor, as described inBleak House;but it will be borne in mind that the "Bleak House" of the novel is placed in Hertfordshire, near St. Albans, andnotat Broadstairs, although many persons still believe that Fort House is the original of the story. From the study we have a lovely view of the sea—the balmy breeze of a summer's day lightly fanning the waves, and just sufficing to move the delicate filamentous foliage of the tamarisk trees now standing in the place where the cornfield was. Even at the time we see it, changed as all its surroundings are, we can imagine the enjoyment which Dickens had in this healthy spot on the North Downs.
"Bleak House" Broadstairs
In that interesting "book for an idle hour" calledThe Shuttlecock Papers, Mr. J. Ashby-Sterry thus sympathetically alludes to "Bleak House":—"What a romantic place this is to write in, is it not? What a glorious study to work in! Indeed, both from situation and association, it would be impossible to find a better place for writing, were it not that one feels that so much superb work has been done on this very spot by so great an artist, that the mere craftsman is inclined to question whether it is worth while for him to write at all."
How well Dickens loved Broadstairs is told in his letter of the 1st September, 1843, addressed to Professor Felton, of Cambridge, U. S. A., as follows:—
"This is a little fishing-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff, whereon—in the centre of a tiny semi-circular bay—our house stands; the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. Seven miles out are the Goodwin Sands (you've heard of the Goodwin Sands?), whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. Also there is a lighthouse called the North Foreland on a hill behind the village, a severe parsonic light, which reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea. Under the cliff are rare good sands, where all the children assemble every morning and throw up impossible fortifications, which the sea throws down again at high-water. Old gentlemen and ancient ladies flirt after their own manner in two reading-rooms, and on a great many scattered seats in the open air. Other old gentlemen look all day long through telescopes and never see anything.
"In a bay-window in a one-pair sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed.His name is Boz. At one he disappears, and presently emerges from a bathing machine, and may be seen—a kind of salmon-coloured porpoise—splashing about in the ocean. After that he may be seen in another bay-window on the ground-floor, eating a strong lunch; after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back in the sand reading a book. Nobody bothers him unless they know he is disposed to be talked to; and I am told he is very comfortable indeed. He's as brown as a berry, and theydosay is a small fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer and cold punch. But this is mere rumour. Sometimes he goes up to London (eighty miles or so away), and then I'm told there is a sound in Lincoln's Inn Fields at night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives and forks, and wine-glasses."
And further in a letter to another correspondent recently made public:—
"When you come to London, to assist at Miss Liston's sacrifice, don't forget to remind your uncle of our Broadstairs engagement to which I hold you bound. A good sea—fresh breezes—fine sands—and pleasant walks—with all manner of fishing-boats, lighthouses, piers, bathing-machines, are its only attractions, but it's one of the freshest little places in the world, consequently the proper place for you."
In the year 1851, in a letter dated 8th September, addressed to Mr. Henry Austin, he thus alludes to a wreck which took place at Broadstairs:—
"A great to-do here. A steamer lost on the Goodwins yesterday, and our men bringing in no end of dead cattle and sheep. I stood supper for them last night, to the unbounded gratification of Broadstairs. They came in from the wreck very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by the natureof their prize—which, I suppose after all, will have to be recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. One lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminating over the bodies as they lay on the pier: 'Couldn't sassages be made on it?' but retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the execrations of the bystanders."
Dickens got tired of Broadstairs in 1847, for reasons given in the following letter to Forster, though he did not forsake it till some years after:—
"Vagrant music is getting to that height here, and is so impossible to be escaped from, that I fear Broadstairs and I must part company in time to come. Unless it pours of rain, I cannot write half an hour without the most excruciating organs, fiddles, bells, or glee singers. There is a violin of the most torturing kind under the window now (time, ten in the morning), and an Italian box of music on the steps—both in full blast."
By good luck we fall in with an "old salt," formerly one of the boatmen ofOur English Watering Placewho are therein immortalized by much kindly mention, with whom we have a pleasant chat about Charles Dickens. Harry Ford (the name of our friend) well remembers the great novelist, when in early days he used to come on his annual excursions with his family to Broadstairs. "Bless your soul," he says, "I can see 'Old Charley,' as we used to call him among ourselves here, a-coming flying down from the cliff with a hop, step, and jump, with his hair all flying about. He used to sit sometimes on that rail" (pointing to the one surrounding the harbour), "with his legs lolling about, and sometimes on the seat that you're a-sitting on now" (adjoining theold Look-out House opposite the Tartar Frigate Inn), "and he was very fond of talking to us fellows and hearing our tales—he was very good-natured, and nobody was liked better. And if you'll read" (continues our informant) "that story that he wrote and printed aboutOur Watering Place,Iwas the man who's mentioned there as mending a little ship for a boy.Iheld that child between my knees. And what's more, sir,Itook 'Old Charley,' on the very last time that he came over to Broadstairs (he wasn't living here at the time), round the foreland to Margate, with a party of four friends. I took 'em in my boat, theIrene," pointing to a clinker-built strong boat lying in the harbour, capable of holding twenty people. "The wind was easterly—the weather was rather rough, and it took me three or four hours to get round. There was a good deal of chaffing going on, I can tell you."
Old Look-out House Broadstairs
Mrs. Long, of Zion Place, Broadstairs, the wife of an old coastguardman, who was stationed at the Preventive Station when Dickens lodged at Fort House, also remembered the novelist. The coastguard men are also immortalized inOur English Watering Place, as "a steady, trusty, well-conditioned, well-conducted set of men, with no misgiving about looking you full in the face, and with a quiet, thorough-going way of passing along to their duty at night, carrying huge sou'wester clothing in reserve, that is fraught with all good prepossession. They are handy fellows—neat about their houses, industrious at gardening, would get on with their wives, one thinks, in a desert island—and people it too soon."
Mrs. Long says "Mr. Dickens was a very nice sort of gentleman, but he didn't like a noise." The windows of Fort House, she reminds us, overlooked the coastguard station, and whenever the children playing about made more noise than usual, he used to tell her husband gently "to take the children away," or "to keep the people quiet." This little story fully confirms Dickens's often-expressed feeling of dislike, which subsequently grew intolerable, to Broadstairs as a watering-place.
After taking a turn or two on the lively Promenade,—made bright by the rich masses of flesh-coloured flowers of the valerian which fringe its margin,—to enjoy the sunshine and air, and watch the holiday folks, we bid adieu to Broadstairs, and proceed to Margate.
Of Margate there is not much to say. We reach it by an early afternoon train of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, to get the quickest service by the South-Eastern Railway on to Canterbury. Our stay at Margate is consequently very limited.
To some minds this popular Cockney watering-place has great attractions; its broad sands, its beautiful air, and its boisterous amusements, negro-melodies, merry-go-rounds, and the like; but it was a place seldom visited by Dickens, although he was so often near it. Only twice in theLifeis it recorded that he came here; once being in 1844, when he wrote to Forster respecting the theatre as follows:—
"'Nota Bene.—The Margate Theatre is open every evening, and the four Patagonians (see Goldsmith'sEssays) are performing thrice a week at Ranelagh.' A visit from me"—Forster goes on to say—"was at this time due, to which these were held out as inducements; and there followed what it was supposed I could not resist, a transformation into the broadest farce of a deep tragedy by a dear friend of ours. 'Now you really must come. Seeing only is believing, very often isn't that, and even Being the thing falls a long way short of believing it. Mrs. Nickleby herself once asked me, as you know, if I really believed there ever was such a woman; but there will be no more belief, either in me or my descriptions, after what I have to tell of our excellent friend's tragedy, if you don't come and have it played again for yourself, 'by particular desire.' We saw it last night, and oh! if you had but been with us! Young Betty, doing what the mind of man without my help nevercanconceive, with his legs like padded boot-trees wrapped up in faded yellow drawers, was the hero. The comic man of the company, enveloped in a white sheet, with his head tied with red tape like a brief, and greeted with yells of laughter whenever he appeared, was the venerable priest. A poor toothless old idiot, at whom the very gallery roared with contempt when he was called a tyrant, was the remorseless and aged Creon. And Ismene, being arrayed inspangled muslin trousers very loose in the legs and very tight in the ankles, such as Fatima would wear inBlue Beard, was at her appearance immediately called upon for a song! After this can you longer—?'"
The "Falstaff": Westgate Canterbury
He speaks in a letter to Forster, dated September, 1847, of "improvements in the Margate Theatre since his memorable first visit." It had been managed by a son of the great comedian Dowton, and the piece which Dickens then saw wasAs You Like It, "really very well done, and a most excellent house." It was Mr. Dowton's benefit, and "he made a sensible and modest kind of speech," which impressed Dickens, who thus concludes his letter:—"He really seems a most respectable man, and he has cleaned out this dusthole of a theatre into something like decency."
There is also the following significant mention of Margate in chapter nineteen ofBleak House:—
"It is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the young clerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees, pant for bliss with the beloved object at Margate, Ramsgate, or Gravesend."
If Broadstairs was noisy, Margate must have been intensely so. We leave the crowded holiday-making place without much feeling of regret, and passing Ramsgate—of which there is but one mention in theLife—on our way, reach Canterbury in the afternoon.
We are delighted with this exquisitely beautiful old city, our only regret being that our time is very limited, and our means of ascertaining places situated in "Dickens-Land" more so.
Taking up our temporary quarters at the "Sir John Falstaff" Hotel, in remembrance of its namesake at Gad's Hill, after the refreshment of a meal, we commence our tramp through Canterbury, where David Copperfield passed some of his happiest days. Of the Falstaff here there is an excellent picture in Mr. Rimmer'sAbout England with Dickens;a very quaint old inn with double front, and bay-windows top and bottom, possibly of the sixteenth century, and with a long swinging sign extending over the pavement, on which is painted a life-like presentment of the portly knight, the pretty ornamental ironwork supporting it reminding one of Washington Irving's description inBracebridge Hall, "fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and flowers."
A few steps further on is the West Gate, "standing between two lofty and spacious round towers erected in the river," built by Archbishop Sudbury, who was barbarously murderedby Wat Tyler in the reign of Richard II., which is the sole remaining one of six gates formerly constituting the approaches to the city. From this gate, looking eastward, with the river Stour on either side, banked by neatly-trimmed private gardens, a beautiful view of the city is obtained. The High Street, crowded with gables of the sixteenth century and later timbered houses, slightly bends and rises as well, until the perspective seems to lose itself in a distant grove of trees, locally called the "Dane John," a corruption of "Donjon." This view, especially when seen on a summer afternoon, is most picturesque. The present appearance of the quiet street is decidedly unlike that which it presented on that busy market-day when Miss Betsey Trotwood drove her nephew along it, for David says, "My aunt had a good opportunity of insinuating the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables, and hucksters' goods. The hair-breadth turns and twists we made drew down upon us a variety ofspeeches from the people standing about, which were not always complimentary; but my aunt drove on with perfect indifference."
The "Dane John" from the City Wall Canterbury
We notice in the windows and in many of the shops an abundance of brightly-coloured cut-flowers, a notable feature of the county of Kent; but we have little time to spare, and hasten on to the Cathedral precincts.
"What a magnificent edifice!" is our first thought on beholding the Cathedral, a noble pile so well befitting the Metropolitan See of England, from which the Christianity of the Kingdom first flowed. Dating from Ethelbert, at the close of the sixth century, three structures have successively occupied the site, culminating in the present one, which, according to Mr. Phillips Bevan, was erected at different times between 1070 and 1500; and he goes on to say:—"No wonder that it exhibits so many styles and peculiarities of detail, although the two most prominent architectural eras are those of 'Transition-Norman' and 'Perpendicular.'"
Bell Harry Tower: Canterbury Cathedral:
The appropriate stone figures in niches of distinguished Royal and Ecclesiastical personages associated with the Cathedral (which at the suggestion of Dean Alford in 1863 replaced those of the murderers of the martyr, Thomas à Becket), from King Ethelbert to Queen Victoria, and from Archbishop Lanfranc to Archbishop Longley; the lofty groined arches and stately towers, the beautiful carved screen, the noble monuments, the splendid choir (a hundred and eighty feet in length) approached by many steps, the rich stained-glass windows, all attract our admiring attention, and confirm our impression that a modern pilgrimage to Canterbury is a thing to be highly appreciated; and on no account would we have missed this part of our excursion. The murder ofThomas à Becket (1170) took place between the nave and the choir in a transept or cross aisle called "The Martyrdom."
There is an interesting Sidney Cooper Gallery of Art, and also a Museum in the city, the latter containing some rare old Roman Mosaic pavement discovered in Burgate Street at a depth of ten feet.
But our object is to identify spots made memorable inDavid Copperfield, and we walk round the spacious Cathedral Close and "make an effort" (as Mrs. Chick said) in trying to find the simple-minded and good Dr. Strong's House. It is described as "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, and walked with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plat."
Alas! it is not here, although there are many such houses that correspond with it in some particulars. So we try several of the "dear old tranquil streets," but fail to discover the identical building.
Scene of the Martyrdom Canterbury Cathedral
The next object of our search is Mr. Wickfield's residence, "a very old house bulging out over the road; a house with low latticed windows, bulging out still further, and beams with carved heads on the ends, bulging out too." How strongly the description in many parts tallies with the houses in Rochester opposite "Eastgate House"; but here again we are baffled, as other modern pilgrims have been before, and we cannot associate any particular building with either of the two houses. The house in Burgate Street now occupied as offices by Messrs. Plummer and Fielding, Diocesan Registrars, who obligingly permit an examination of it, is suggested to us as being Mr. Wickfield's house, but, afteran inspection, on several grounds we are obliged to reject this suggestion.
"Bits" of Old Canterbury."Bits" of Old Canterbury.
There was many a "low old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the street," which would have served for the "umble" dwelling of Uriah Heep and his mother, but none can be pointed out with absolute certainty as being the veritable one.
By the kindness of Dr. Sheppard and Mr. T. B. Rosseter, F.R.M.S., we are, however, enabledto identify two houses in Canterbury alluded to inDavid Copperfield. The "County Inn," where Mr. Dick slept on his visits to David "every alternate Wednesday," was no doubt The Royal Fountain Hotel in St. Margaret's Street (formerly the Watling Street), which is still recognized as such. A passage in the seventeenth chapter thus refers to these visits:—
"Mr. Dick was very partial to ginger-bread. To render his visits the more agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake-shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be served with more than one shilling's-worth in the course of any one day. This, and the reference of all his little bills at the County Inn, where he slept, to my aunt before they were paid, induced me to think that Mr. Dick was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it."
"Mr. Dick was very partial to ginger-bread. To render his visits the more agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake-shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be served with more than one shilling's-worth in the course of any one day. This, and the reference of all his little bills at the County Inn, where he slept, to my aunt before they were paid, induced me to think that Mr. Dick was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it."
The "little Inn" (as recorded in the same chapter) where Mr. Micawber "put up" on his first visit to Canterbury, and where he "occupied a little room in it partitioned off from the commercial, and strongly flavoured with tobacco smoke," is doubtless the "Sun Inn" in Sun Street, which is at the opposite corner of the square where the ancient "Chequers" in Mercery Lane—the Pilgrim's Inn of Chaucer—stood. It was a place of resort from afar, and was altered in the seventeenth century. Dr. Sheppard calls attention to the interesting fact that the omnibus from Herne Bay stopped at the Sun; and probably, in his visits to Broadstairs, Dickens would often run over for a day's trip to Canterbury.
On their first visit to the "little Inn," Mr. and Mrs. Micawber—notwithstanding their chronic impecuniosity—thus entertained David Copperfield:—
"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."
"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."
They spent a jolly evening, and ended with singingAuld Lang Syne.
The "little Inn" is again alluded to later in the story, where Mr. Micawber announces his full determination to abstain from everything until he has exposed the machinations of, and blown to pieces, "the—a—detestable serpent—Heep;" and finally, where David Copperfield "assisted at an explosion," and Mr. Micawber is triumphant, and the "transcendent and immortal hypocrite and perjurer,Heep," is forced to succumb.
Speaking of the "little Inn" for the last time, David says:—"I looked at the old house from the corner of the street. . . . The early sun was striking edgewise on its gables and lattice-windows, touching them with gold; and some beams of its old peace seemed to touch my heart."
Dr. Sheppard subsequently told us that, when he was beginning to turn his attention to the deciphering and utilizing of ancient MSS., he was much impressed, when perusing some articles inHousehold Words, or some other papers written by Dickens, relating to the neglected state of public records, more particularly at Canterbury; and when many years after the very records of which he wrote came under his (Dr. Sheppard's) care, he was surprised to find the names of Snodgrass, Sam Weller, and others therein. The records to which Dr. Sheppard referred were those in charge of the Archbishop's Registrar at Canterbury.
If time permits it would be pleasant to go on to Dover,[33]to see "Miss Betsey Trotwood's house," but this is impossible; and indeed, all that can be said about a tramp in search of "that very neat little cottage with cheerful bow windows in front of it, a small square gravelled court or garden full of flowers carefully tended, and smelling deliciously," has been well said by Mr. Ashby-Sterry in his delightful little volume,Cucumber Chronicles.
"The Little Inn" Canterbury
After much perseverance, and in spite of almost as many difficulties as beset poor little David Copperfield himself in his search for his aunt (who, as the Dover boatmen told him, "lived in the South Foreland Light, and had singed her whiskers by doing so"—"that she was made fast to the great buoy outside the harbour, and could only be visited at half-tide"—"that she was locked up in Maidstone Jail for child-stealing"—and that "she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind and make direct for Calais"), Mr. Ashby-Sterry succeeded, although his greatest embarrassment arose from that irrepressible nuisance, "Buggins the Builder," who cannot be controlled even in the neighbourhood of Dover, so "hugely does he delight to mar those spots that have been hallowed by antiquity, seclusion, or the pen of the novelist. Hence the abode of Betsey Trotwood is not so pleasant as it must have been formerly, for other houses have clustered about the back and the front." But Mr. Ashby-Sterry quite satisfied himself as to the identity on Dover Heights of the very neat little cottage, and assures us that "the house, however, still stands high, the fresh breezes from over the sea and across the Down smite it. It still has a view of the sea, though perhaps not so uninterrupted as it was in the days of David Copperfield." He further states that it is, perhaps, not quite so neat as it was in Miss Betsey Trotwood's time, though there are no donkeys about. Here are the bow windows, with the room above, where Mr. Dick alarmed poor David by nodding and laughing at him on his first arrival. The window on the right must have belonged to the neat room "with the drugget-covered carpet," and the old-fashioned furniture brightly polished, where might be found "the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries, the old china, the punch-bowl full of driedrose leaves, the tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and wonderfully out of keeping with the rest." On the strength of this description by an ardent lover of Dickens, we fully make up our minds to visit Dover at no distant date to see Miss Betsey Trotwood's house for ourselves.
À proposof Miss Trotwood's domicile, we have been favoured by Mr. C. K. Worsfold, an old resident of Dover, with a letter containing some interesting particulars, from which we extract the following:—
"Dickens's description of the local habitation of Betsey Trotwood is not consistent with the surroundings. The hills on either side of the town belong to the War Department, and are occupied as fortifications; on the eastern side is the Castle, and on the western side barracks and forts. On the western heights there is a house somewhat answering to Dickens's description, having a garden in front of it, and a small plot of grass in front of the garden; and about forty years ago there lived in this house a lady of rather masculine character, who always resented any intrusion of boys, and perhaps donkeys, on the grass in front of her house and garden, and I believe she was occasionally rather rough with the boys; but there the likeness to Betsey Trotwood ends. This was a married lady living with her husband.
"I know it was a matter of conversation forty years ago that Dickens must have found his original in the lady in question, but I think he was rather in the habit of selecting his characters without reference to locality, and then adapting them to his requirements.
"Dickens was a frequent visitor to Dover, and he may possibly have been a witness of some encounter between this lady and the boys, and on that occasion donkeys may havebeen present.[34]I do not know of any relative of the lady answering to Miss Trotwood's worthy nephew."
"A moderate stroke," as Mr. Datchery said, "is all I am justified in scoring up"; and we reluctantly leave the "sunny street of Canterbury, dozing, as it were, in the hot light," and take our places in the train for Chatham, distant about twenty-seven miles.
The only new parts of interest which we go over, on our return journey by rail, are the green fields surrounding the ancient city, wherein are numbers of those beautiful and quiet-feeding cattle, which the eminent artist, Mr. T. Sidney Cooper, R.A. (who resides in the neighbourhood), loves to paint, and paints so well; and in due time we pass the chalk-topped hills called Harbledown, overlooking Canterbury, from whence the best view of the city is obtained, and safely reach our headquarters at Rochester.
"And now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the sails of the ships on the river growing out of it; and we went into the Churchyard . . . and the light wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees."
* * * * * *
"What might have been your opinion of the place?""A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp and work; work, swamp, mist, and mudbank."—Great Expectations.
"What might have been your opinion of the place?"
"A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp and work; work, swamp, mist, and mudbank."—Great Expectations.
* * * * * *
"They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and scattered at long intervals, often miles apart. Occasionally they came upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low board put across the open door, to keep the scrambling children from the road; others shut up close, while all the family were working in the fields. These were often the commencement of a little village; and after an interval came a wheelwright's shed, or perhaps a blacksmith's forge; then a thriving farm, with sleepy cows lying about the yard, and horses peering over the low wall, and scampering away when harnessed horses passed upon the road, as though in triumph at their freedom."—The Old Curiosity Shop.
Nowfor a long tramp in the country of the Marshes—the famous "Meshes" ofGreat Expectations. The air is sultry on this Thursday afternoon, and there is thunder in the distance. The storm, however, does not pass over Rochester, but further on we find traces of it where the roadways have been washed up. Afterwards the air becomes deliciously cool, and that hum of all Nature which succeeds the quiet preceding the storm is distinctly perceptible. Crossing Rochester Bridge, keeping to the right along Strood andFrindsbury—the churchyard of which affords a splendid view of Rochester, Chatham, and the Medway—passing up Four Elms Hill and through the little village of Wainscot, nothing of interest calls for notice until we have travelled some miles from Strood. After crossing a tramway belonging to Government, and utilized by the Royal Engineers as a means of communication between the powder-magazine and Chatham Barracks, we observe that vegetation, which is so rich in other parts of Kent, here appears to be dwarfed and stunted. A hop-garden presents a very miserable contrast, in its struggle for existence, to others we have seen in the more central parts of the county, and even some of these were far from being luxuriant, owing to such a peculiarly wet and cold season. The hedges in places are diversified with the small gold and violet star-like flowers and the green and scarlet berries of the climbing woody nightshade, or bitter-sweet (Solanum Dulcamara), often mistaken for the deadly nightshade (Atropa Belladonna—a fine bushy herbaceous perennial, with large ovate-shaped leaves, and lurid, purple bell-shaped flowers), quite a different plant, and happily somewhat rare in England. The delicate light-blue flowers of the chicory are very abundant here.
A tramp of upwards of six miles from Rochester, by way of Hoo,[35]brings us to Lodge Hill, overlooking Perry Hill, which affords a magnificent view of the mouth of the Thames beyond the low-lying Marshes, and of Canvey Island, off the coast of Essex, on the opposite side. By the kindness of a farmer's wife we are allowed to take a short cut throughthe farm-garden and grounds, which leads direct to Cooling (or Cowling) Church, a cheerless, grey-stone structure, the tower standing out as a beacon long before we reach it.
Those unacquainted with this part of Kent may be interested in knowing that the Marshes, which stretch out over a considerable distance on either side of the Thames, on both the Kent and the Essex coasts, consist entirely of alluvial soil reclaimed at some time from the river. They are intersected by ditches and water-courses, and covered with rank vegetation, chiefly of grass, rushes, and flags, where not cultivated. Higher up the land is rich, and large tracts of it are planted with vegetables as market gardens. Sea-gulls, plovers, and herons are numerous; their call-notes in the still evening sounding shrill and uncanny over the long stretches of flat lands.
Dear old Michael Drayton, the Warwickshire poet, who touched upon almost everything, has not omitted to describe the Marshes in a somewhat similar locality, for in thePolyolbion(Song XVIII.) he gracefully compares them to a female enamoured of the beauties of the River Rother, thus:—
"Appearing to the flood, most bravely like a Queen,Clad all from head to foot, in gaudy Summer's green,Her mantle richly wrought with sundry flow'rs and weeds;Her moistful temples bound with wreaths of quiv'ring reeds;And on her loins a frock, with many a swelling plait,Emboss'd with well-spread horse, large sheep, and full-fed neat;With villages amongst, oft powthered here and there;And (that the same more like to landscape should appear)With lakes and lesser fords, to mitigate the heatIn summer, when the fly doth prick the gadding neat."
Readers ofGreat Expectationswill remember that thescene in the first chapter between Pip and the convict, Magwitch, is laid in Cooling churchyard, and on reaching this spot we are instantly reminded of what doubtless gave origin to the idea of the five dead little brothers of poor Philip Pirrip, for there, on the left of the principal pathway, are indeed, not five stone lozenges, buttenin one row and three more at the back of them, such peculiarly-shaped and curiously-arranged little monuments as we never before beheld. They consist of a grey stone (Kentish-rag, probably, but lichen-encrusted by time) of cylindrical shape, widening at the shoulders, coffin-like, and about a yard in length, the diameter being about eight inches, including the portion buried in the earth. Four little foot-stones are placed in front, and separating the ten little memorials from the three at the back is a large head-stone, bearing the name—"Comport of Cowling Court, 1771." Cooling Church, which has the date 1615 on one of the bells, has an example of a Hagioscope, a curious, small, square, angular, tunnel-like opening through the wall, which divides the nave from the chancel. It is said to have been the place through which those members of the church, who were unworthy or unable to receive the sacred elements, might get a look at their more acceptable companions during the administration of the sacrament. The Rev. W. H. A. Leaver, the Rector, who kindly shows us over his church, in reply to our question as to whether he could give any information about Charles Dickens, said that he was a new-comer in the district, and that all he remembers is, that when his sister was a little baby in arms, her mother happened once to be travelling in the same train with the great novelist, who, with his usual kindness, gave the child an orange, which she acknowledged very ungratefully by scratching his face!
The following is a picture of the neighbourhood, given in the opening sentences of the story:—