270 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS - 



of Canterbury he owed, under the Divine blessing, the 

 first and best means of his elevation in life." The 

 future judge's grandfather used to shave people for a 

 penny in a small shop opposite the west front of the 

 cathedral. And the last time the good judge came 

 down to Canterbury he brought his son Charles with 

 him, and showed him the spot, and read him a small 

 homily which Charles I hope digested. 



It will not be forgotten that Canterbury as a cathedral 

 town was graced for a short but stirring period in his 

 life by the presence of Mr. Micawber. " I am about, 

 my dear Copperfield," he wrote, " to establish myself in 

 one of the provincial towns of our favoured island (where 

 the society may be described as a happy admixture of 

 the agricultural and the clerical) in immediate connec- 

 tion with one of the learned professions." Which con- 

 nection it will be remembered led the writer into the 

 society of Uriah Heep, which society led him into that 

 painful slough of despond which compelled him to 

 describe himself as a " foundered barque,'" " a fallen 

 tower," and " a shattered fragment of the temple once 

 called man." 



We all know, I should hope, how the great man rose 

 superior to this lamentable state of affairs — how in this 

 very town of Canterbury, supported by David Copper- 

 field and Traddlcs, he bearded Heep in his den, " or, as 

 our lively neighbour the Gaul would have it, in his 

 bureau ; " how with a perfect miracle of dexterity or 

 luck, he caught the advancing knuckles of Uriah (bent 

 on ravishing away the compromising document) with a 

 ruler, and disabled him then and there, remarking at the 

 same moment, " Approach me again, you — you — you 

 Heep of infamy, and if your head is human I'll break 

 it." All these great landmarks of literature are to me 

 as it were everlasting mile-stones on the old Dover 

 Road, and I but mention them to fix their site. 



Fifteen miles or so separate Dover from Canterbury. 

 Near Bridge, which is about five miles on, lived Hooker, 



