106 THE DOVER ROAD 



of the Ivanhoe type ; chivalry or necessities of State 

 should have ennobled slaughter here, but a tale of 

 secret murder for private ends vulgarises and tarnishes 

 the place, especially when it is told with all Dickens' 

 wealth of local allusion. He had no comprehension 

 of tragedy and romance other than those of the street 

 and the police-court ; which is to say that he had 

 better have left Rochester alone, so far as the Mystery 

 of Edzvin Drood is concerned. 



If my imaginary traveller comes to Rochester 

 without having read that tale he will be singularly 

 fortunate. Otherwise he will have an uneasy feeling 

 as he stands and gazes a moment upon the west 

 front of the Cathedral, or peeps into the nave, that 

 it ought to be re-consecrated. This, of course, is 

 a tribute to Dickens' descriptive and narrative poAvers 

 that clothe the doings of his characters with so great 

 an air of reality ; but how unfortunate for those who 

 like their murders to be decently old and historical 

 that he should have brought the atmosphere of the 

 police-court into the grave and reverend air of this 

 ancient city. 



My traveller, happily unversed in all this, will gaze 

 upon the Cathedral and the Castle Keep, where the 

 rooks are circling to rest, and, coming again into the 

 High Street, will turn to his inn, where appetite, 

 sharpened by pedestrianism and fresh air, may be 

 appeased as well now as in those days of heavy drinking 

 and no less heavy eating, when seventy-two coaches 

 passed through Rochester daily and the trains that 

 thuiKier across the Medway were undreamt of. 



The inns of Rochester receive, as may well be 

 supposed, many pilgrims who for love of Chaucer, 

 Shakespeare, and Dickens, come hither, not alone 

 frpm all parts of England, but from America, and 

 even from foreign-speaking countries, and the visitors' 

 books testify not only to their opinions of the place 

 but also of each other. Thus at one inn I read the 

 signatures of a party of Germans, to which some 



