place he knew so well.  On we clattered, leaving the echoing street behind us, on and on for many a mile, until noon, when, finding a green wood and clear stream by the roadside, we encamped under the shadow of the trees in a retired spot for lunch.  Again we went on, through quaint towns and lonely roads, until we came to Canterbury, in the yellow afternoon.  The bells for service were ringing as we drove under the stone archway into the soundless streets.  The whole town seemed to be enjoying a simultaneous nap, from which it was aroused by our horses’ hoofs.  Out the people ran, at this signal, into the highway, and we were glad to descend at some distance from the centre of the city, thus leaving the excitement behind us.  We had been exposed to the hot rays of the sun all day, and the change into the shadow of the cathedral was refreshing.  Service was going forward as we entered; we sat down, therefore, and joined our voices with those of the choristers.  Dickens, with tireless observation, noted how sleepy and inane were the faces of many of the singers, to whom this beautiful service was but a sickening monotony of repetition.  The words, too, were gabbled over in a manner anything but impressive.  He was such a downright enemy to form, as substituted for religion, that any dash of untruth or unreality was abhorrent to him.  When the last sounds died away in the cathedral we came out again into the cloisters, and sauntered about until the shadows fell over the beautiful enclosure.  We were hospitably entreated, and listened to many an historical tale of tomb and stone and grassy nook; but under all we were listening to the heart of our companion, who had so often wandered thither in his solitude, and was now rereading the stories these urns had prepared for him.

During one of his winter visits, he says (in “Copperfield"):—­

“Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober pleasure that calmed my spirits and eased my heart.  There were the old signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them.  It appeared so long since I had been a school-boy there, that I wondered the place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I was changed myself.  Strange to say, that quiet influence which was inseparable in my mind from Agnes seemed to pervade even the city where she dwelt.  The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks, whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done; the battered gateways, once stuck full with statues, long thrown down and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses; the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden;—­everywhere, in everything, I felt the same serene air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit.”