92 THE DOVER ROAD 



also among the accidents and circumstances of the time. 

 . . . Old Mr. Weller* was a real person, and we 

 knew him. He was ' Old Chumley ' in the flesh, and 

 drove the stage daily from Rochester to London, 

 and back again." 



GAD'S HILL PLACE. RESIDEXCE OF CHARLES DICKEXS. 



It was here, then, that Dickens lived from 1856 to his 

 death, on June 9, 1870, and thus Gad's Hill is, for many, 

 doubly a place of pilgrimage. And, truly, the whole 

 course of the Dover Road is rich in memories of him 

 and of the characters he drew with such a flow of 

 sentimentality ; and sentiment is more to the English- 

 man than is generally supposed. Hence that amazing 

 popularity which is only just now being critically 

 inquired into, weighed and appraised, Dickens was a 

 man of commanding genius. His observation was 

 acute, and he reproduced with so photographic a 

 fidelity the life and times of his early years that the 

 " manners and customs of the English," during the 

 first third of the nineteenth century, find no such 



* One ol the many originals of " Samivel's father " put forward. One was 

 supposed to have been at Bath, another at Dorking ; and others still have 

 claims to have originated this humorous character. 



