al has been happy in the possession of
no history, and we pass on, therefore, to the examination in detail of its
exterior.

[Illustration: THE CLOISTERS.]

CHAPTER II.

EXTERIOR AND PRECINCTS--THE MONASTERY.

The external beauties of Canterbury Cathedral can best be viewed in their
entirety from a distance. The old town has nestled in close under the
walls of the church that dominates it, preventing anything like a complete
view of the building from the immediate precincts. But Canterbury is girt
with a ring of hills, from which we may enjoy a strikingly beautiful view
of the ancient city, lying asleep in the rich, peaceful valley of the
Stour, and the mighty cathedral towering over the red-tiled roofs of the
town, and looking, as a rustic remarked as he gazed down upon it "like a
hen brooding over her chickens." Erasmus must have been struck by some
such aspect of the cathedral, for he says, "It rears its crest (_erigit
se_) with so great majesty to the sky, that it inspires a feeling of awe
even in those who look at it from afar." Such a view may well be got from
the hills of Harbledown, a village about two miles from Canterbury,
containing in itself many objects of antiquarian and aesthetic interest.
It stands on the road by which Chaucer's pilgrims wended their way to the
shrine of St. Thomas, and it is almost certainly referred to in the lines
in which the poet speaks of

"A little town
Which that yeleped is Bob Up and Down
Under the Blee in Canterbury way."

The name Harbledown is derived by local philologists from Bob up and Down,
and the hilly nature of the country fully justifies the title. Here stands
Lanfranc's Lazar-house, "so picturesque even now in its decay, and in
spite of modern alterations which have swept away all but the ivy-clad
chapel of Lanfranc." In this hospital a shoe of St. Thomas was preserved
which pilgrims were expected to kiss as they passed by; and in an old
chest the modern visitor may still behold a rude money-box with a slit in
the lid, into which the great Erasmus is said to have dropped a coin when
he visited Canterbury at the time when St. Thomas's glory was just
beginning to wane. Behind the hospital is an ancient well called "the
Black Prince's Well." The Black Prince, as is well known, passed through
Canterbury on his way from Sandwich to London, whither he was escorting
his royal prisoner, King John of France, whom he had captured