over the ground, and the gates and chains were rusty with disuse.  “This avenue,” said Dickens, as we leaned upon the wall and looked into its cool shadows, “is never crossed except to bear the dead body of the lord of the hall to its last resting-place; a remnant of superstition, and one which Lord and Lady D——­ would be glad to do away with, but the villagers would never hear of such a thing, and would consider it certain death to any person who should go or come through this entrance.  It would be a highly unpopular movement for the present occupants to attempt to uproot this absurd idea, and they have given up all thoughts of it for the time.”

It was on a subsequent visit to Cobham village that we explored the “College,” an old foundation of the reign of Edward III. for the aged poor of both sexes.  Each occupant of the various small apartments was sitting at his or her door, which opened on a grassy enclosure with arches like an abandoned cloister of some old cathedral.  Such a motley society, brought together under such unnatural circumstances, would of course interest Dickens.  He seemed to take a profound pleasure in wandering about the place, which was evidently filled with the associations of former visits in his own mind.  He was usually possessed by a childlike eagerness to go to any spot which he had made up his mind it was best to visit, and quick to come away, but he lingered long about this leafy old haunt on that Sunday afternoon.

Of Cobham Hall itself much might be written without conveying an adequate idea of its peculiar interest to this generation.  The terraces, and lawns, and cedar-trees, and deer-park, the names of Edward III. and Elizabeth, the famous old Cobhams and their long line of distinguished descendants, their invaluable pictures and historic chapel, have all been the common property of the past and of the present.  But the air of comfort and hospitality diffused about the place by the present owners belongs exclusively to our time, and a little Swiss chalet removed from Gad’s Hill, standing not far from the great house, will always connect the name of Charles Dickens with the place he loved so well.  The chalet has been transferred thither as a tribute from the Dickens family to the kindness of their friends and former neighbors.  We could not fail, during our visit, to think of the connection his name would always have with Cobham Hall, though he was then still by our side, and the little chalet yet remained embowered in its own green trees overlooking the sail-dotted Medway as it flowed towards the Thames.

The old city of Rochester, to which we have already referred as being particularly well known to all Mr. Pickwick’s admirers, is within walking distance from Gad’s Hill Place, and was the object of daily visits from its occupants.  The ancient castle, one of the best ruins in England, as Dickens loved to say, because less has been done to it, rises with rugged walls precipitously from the river.