erwards the house was inhabited by Mr. Lynn (from some of the members
of whose family Dickens made his purchase); and, before the Rev. Mr.
Hindle became its tenant, it was inhabited by a Macaroni parson named
Townshend, whose horses the Prince Regent bought, throwing into the
bargain a box of much desired cigars. Altogether the place had notable
associations even apart from those which have connected it with the
masterpieces of English humour. "THIS HOUSE, GADSHILL PLACE, stands on
the summit of Shakespeare's Gadshill, ever memorable for its association
with Sir John Falstaff in his noble fancy. _But, my lads, my lads,
to-morrow morning, by four o'clock, early at Gadshill! there are
pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to
London with fat purses: I have vizards for you all; you have horses for
yourselves._" Illuminated by Mr. Owen Jones, and placed in a frame on
the first-floor landing, these words were the greeting of the new tenant
to his visitors. It was his first act of ownership.

All his improvements, it should perhaps be remarked, were not
exclusively matters of choice; and to illustrate by his letters what
befell at the beginning of his changes, will show what attended them to
the close. His earliest difficulty was very grave. There was only one
spring of water for gentlefolk and villagers, and from some of the
houses or cottages it was two miles away. "We are still" (6th of July)
"boring for water here, at the rate of two pounds per day for wages. The
men seem to like it very much, and to be perfectly comfortable." Another
of his earliest experiences (5th of September) was thus expressed:
"Hop-picking is going on, and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in
at the keyhole of the house door. I have been amazed, before this year,
by the number of miserable lean wretches, hardly able to crawl, who go
hop-picking. I find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly
picked hop, falling freshly into the throat, is a cure for consumption.
So the poor creatures drag themselves along the roads, and sleep under
wet hedges, and get cured soon and finally." Towards the close of the
same month (24th of September) he wrote: "Here are six men perpetually
going up and down the well (I know that somebody will be killed), in the
course of fitting a pump; which is quite a railway terminus--it is so
iron, and so big. The process is much more like putting Oxford-street
endwise, and laying gas alo