rable
priest. A poor toothless old idiot, at whom the very gallery roared with
contempt when he was called a tyrant, was the remorseless and aged
Creon. And Ismene, being arrayed in spangled muslin trousers very loose
in the legs and very tight in the ankles, such as Fatima would wear in
_Blue Beard_, was at her appearance immediately called upon for a song!
After this can you longer--?'"

[Illustration: The "Falstaff": Westgate Canterbury]

He speaks in a letter to Forster, dated September, 1847, of
"improvements in the Margate Theatre since his memorable first visit."
It had been managed by a son of the great comedian Dowton, and the piece
which Dickens then saw was _As You Like It_, "really very well done, and
a most excellent house." It was Mr. Dowton's benefit, and "he made a
sensible and modest kind of speech," which impressed Dickens, who thus
concludes his letter:--"He really seems a most respectable man, and he
has cleaned out this dusthole of a theatre into something like
decency."

There is also the following significant mention of Margate in chapter
nineteen of _Bleak House_:--

"It is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the young
clerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees, pant
for bliss with the beloved object at Margate, Ramsgate, or Gravesend."

If Broadstairs was noisy, Margate must have been intensely so. We leave
the crowded holiday-making place without much feeling of regret, and
passing Ramsgate--of which there is but one mention in the _Life_--on
our way, reach Canterbury in the afternoon.

We are delighted with this exquisitely beautiful old city, our only
regret being that our time is very limited, and our means of
ascertaining places situated in "Dickens-Land" more so.

Taking up our temporary quarters at the "Sir John Falstaff" Hotel, in
remembrance of its namesake at Gad's Hill, after the refreshment of a
meal, we commence our tramp through Canterbury, where David Copperfield
passed some of his happiest days. Of the Falstaff here there is an
excellent picture in Mr. Rimmer's _About England with Dickens_; a very
quaint old inn with double front, and bay-windows top and bottom,
possibly of the sixteenth century, and with a long swinging sign
extending over the pavement, on which is painted a life-like presentment
of the portly knight, the pretty ornamental ironwork supporting it
reminding one of Washington Irving's description in _Bracebridge Hall_,