literature, sunk into a premature grave. Would that it were in our power to say something to do honor to the memory of that great and worthy man-this is the best return posterity can make them for their noble works and virtuous principles.

To return little opportunity was afforded us on this occasion of enjoying the society of Sir Francis Doyle. The train soon drew up at the Chatham station, where, after bidding adieu to our distinguished friend, we descended to have a look at the dockyards and some of those modern ironclads which have superceded England's wooden walls.

Chatham, which possesses considerable claims to antiquity, is one of those industrious manufacturing centres too much occupied with the work of the present to have time to talk of its ancestors. To all not specially concerned in shipbuilding it is the most uninteresting of towns, consisting of a vast collection of dreary, monotonous looking cottages, in which are crowded a working population of fifty thousand. This mass of human beings owes its support entirely to the government expenditures at this point. No one lives in Chatham unless employed in the great naval and military establishments. We quickly determined to "do" Chatham in the shortest possible space of time, and went to work energetically to see the sights, the sooner to shake the dust of the town from our feet.

A naval station has existed at Chatham since the days of Elizabeth, and by degrees it has grown into one of the first class English naval arsenals and dockyards. Especially has Chatham as sumed importance since the introduction of ironclads, the appliances for building them here being somewhat peculiar to the place. Upon applying to be admitted, we found it necessary to enter in a book kept for the purpose, our name, profession and nationali ty. After this we were conducted to an office, where the order of admission was made out, and presented to a guide who preceded to conduct us through the establishment.

The dockyard extends about a mile and a half on the river, and consists of wet docks for repairing ships, an immense tidal basin, seven covered slips on which to build ships, a mast house, a boat house, with a store of ship boats, a rope house, in which cables, hawsers and other kinds of ropes are made, a store-house, a sailloft, two mast ponds, workshops containing duplicates of Brunel's block making machinery, a smithery with forty forges, giving out their fierce heat, and steam hammers of 50 cwt. falling on masses of glowing iron; hydraulic presses for bending thick plates for ironclads, a timber pond with a submarine canal for floating in timber from the river Medway. sawing mills with numerous verti cal and circular saws, metal mills for making copper bolts, ship

sheeting, and order articles in metal, and various other buildings necessary for the construction of great wooden and iron war ships. To describe these shops and the progress would require a volume. More extensive than the dockyards are the military establishments which cover an immense area of ground. There are barracks for 5.000 infantry. constantly occupied by invalids from India and the colonies; extensive artillery barracks, with stabling for their horses; barracks for a corps of the Royal Engineers and for the school of Military Engineering, which is established in the suburbs and designed for teaching officers all that concerns siege operations and defence work. Likewise a military prison, where from three to four thousand criminals are confined, and various hospitals and other buildings connected with these numerous establishments. The whole stretch no less than two miles along the Medway and further into the interior. There is nothing peculiar about them which would justify a particular description. We were much gratified by a visit to the soldier's institute, an admirable place, in which soldiers can enjoy the advantages of a good library and news room, chess and bagatelle tables, fives and tennis court. The building is well warmed, lighted and ventilated. A subscription of 4d. per month is demanded, the institute being a private affair of the soldiers, kept up by contributions, and more than 3 000 soldiers are members of it.

Adjoining Chatham, and to a stranger apparently forming the more aristocratic or west end of it, is the quaint old city of Rochester, so famous for its ancient cathedral, founded in the eleventh century, the chancel choir and trancept of which were added in 1230 by a noble and wealthy gentleman, Sir William de Hooe, of the Hundred of Hooe, in the Isle of Grain in Kent, and the exten sive ruins of its grand old feudal castle, the battlements of which are now 104 feet from the ground. Though we visited every spot and fragment of this venerable monument of antiquity with the liveliest interest, any description of it would but fatigue. The walks around it are sequestered and pleasing and altogether calculated to raise our admiration and give a more perfect idea of this beautiful specimen of an ancient fortification, but viewing it we could but exclaim, "sad are the ruthless ravages of time."

We availed ourselves of the opportunity while in Chatham to walk as far as Gad's Hill, so notorious in old times as a haunt of tramps, rogues, vagabonds, and all kinds of desperate and abandoned characters. It was here that Shakespeare places the scene of one of the pranks of Falstaff, Prince Hal, Burdolph and their companions. On entering the Inn standing on the summit of the hill and intended to perpetuate the fame of the fat knight, we saw hanging on the wall a likeness of Sir John, whose lips seemed to

move with the words, "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn." The proprietor of this inn is a man of education above his station and conversed with sense and judgment upon the subject of Shakespeare's plays and the writings of his neighbor, Charles Dickens, whose home is not more than a hundred yards from the Inn upon the opposite side of the road. He told us that Dickens was then at home, at least he had seen him the evening before, and that he was always glad to see strangers. We had not in tended calling upon the popular novelist. While admiring his genius we detested his character. All the world knows that he was a snob, and it is generally conceded that he was a drunkard and an adulterer. Curiosity, however, seemed to take possession of us, and in a moment of freak we formed a hasty resolution to

look in upon him. Proceeding at once to the entrance of his

grounds, we were met by a decidedly inhospitable growl, and saw in large letters across the gate, "Beware of the dog." A servant who answered our vigorous pull at the bell protected us from the idiotic looking brute who guarded the premises of "Boz," and con ducted us to the house. From her we learned that Dickens had gone to London a few hours before, and that the only occupants of the house at the moment were a son and daughter. Without stopping to see them we returned to the public house, and settling our bill, left by a lane passing Dickens' house, to make our visit to Cobham Hall. From this lane running across Gad's Hall, we saw stretching before us at a distance of three miles, the wooded hills and plains of this magnificent park. After passing through a pretty and highly cultivated country where many parties were engaged gathering the ripe hops, we arrived at the park enclosure, and crossing a platform entered the grounds by a foot path conducting almost directly to the hall. Wandering through the arbor walks of this elysian wilderness, it seemed like a land of enchantment. So artfully had the walks been planned, that they seemed interminable, and the grounds without limit. The beautiful and the vast blended together. In a central situation, sparkling in the sunshine, was a serpentine lake, upon which swans of snowy whiteness floated, and towards which the drooping trees bent their branches. Herds of deer fed upon the green savannahs blazing in the sunshine.

Arriving at the Hall, one of the finest old residences in this part of England, and always thrown open to the public when the family is absent, as was now the case, we were ushered into the private apartments and conducted through them by one of the servants who acted as guide. This place had been in the Cobham family for many years previous to the 16th century, and in 1559 Queen Elizabeth was entertained here in great magnificence. Shortly

after 1603 when Sir Walter Raleigh was dastardly betrayed by Lord Henry Cobham, who was himself long confined like Raleigh in the Tower, and finally beheaded, the estate was confiscated. We may remark en passant that at the time of Raleigh's imprisonment Sir John Peyton, of Doddington, who had been a member of Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, was governor of the Tower.— Among the curious MSS letters of Sir John now in the British Museum, presented to the national library of Great Britain by George III, are many letters written by Sir John to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who was sole secretary of State in 1603. While the author was in England he enjoyed the privilege of a reader's ticket to the library, and time and again spent a few days searching among this vast collection. The following are copies of two of Sir John Peyton's letters to the Earl of Salisbury, in which he alludes to some of the State prisoners. And in the house of this very Earl of Salisbury we were now examining the objects of interest and calling up the associations of the past.

SIR JOHN PEYTON TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY.

Right Honorable,

TOWER, July 21st, 1603.

My very good Lord:-"According to y'r L'dships directions I related unto my Lord Cobham, what course was best for him as his case now standeth, he being under a Kings justice, that is composed of all mercy. I urged him to use no manner of reservation, which course he vowed to God to hold in his relation, which I send enclosed to your L'dship as required.

"Sir Walter Rawley standeth still upon his innocence, but with a mind the most dejected that I ever saw.

"My Lord Grey continueth in the same manner he did. He is desirous to write to His Majesty, which I in good warmth denied, until I might understand his Majesty's pleasure. Then he entreated me to permit him to write to your L'dship, whereupon. I assented, and his letter I send enclosed.

'In all these actions God has shown a protecting providence over our good King and the State, wherein my heart rejoiceth.— And so I most humbly take my leave."

Your Lordships servant &c
JOHN PEYTON,

Lieutenant of the Tower.

SAME TO SAME.

July 23, 1603.

Right Honorable,

My very good Lord.-"I must confess that since

on y'r L'dship I have been more than gratified, by your noble pas sion towards my son and honorable letters to myself which doth double both our desires to do your service, beseaching y'r L'dship to command me as one in whom your Lordship hath had and ever may have confidence. The letters directed to Lord Gray were brought by a soldier once of the lower countries.

"I also send your Lordship a letter for my lord Cobham, who in all his speech doth in no way spare himself. I never saw so strange a dejected mind as in Sir Walter Rawley. I am exceedingly cumbered with him; five or six times a day he sendeth for me in such passions as I see his fortitude is impotent to support his grief. Thus I take my leave.

Your Lordships ever &c.,

TOWER, this 23 July, 1603.

JOHN PEYTON.

After the confiscation of the estate of the Cobhams, it became. the property of the Duke of Lennox, who had the honor of entertaining Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, in the Hall. During the revolution and the Republic under Cromwell, the property was despoiled by the Roundheads, and after the restoration became the property of the Darnleys, and so continues. Though many of the rooms have been modernized there is a great deal of the Old World grandeur about Cobham Hall. The principal feature is the very extensive and select gallery of paintings, a large portion of them by the old masters.

From the Hall we crossed the Park to the village, visiting lime tree avenue, which is 3000 feet long, and the Mansoleum, which was built in 1782 for use as a tomb. In every part of the park the scenery is magnificent and the lime, cedar and oaks of majestic size and picturesque arrangement. Slowly and silently we wandered over the grassy lawns and through the solemn groves, anon lingering by the way to gaze a last farewell on that hoary and time-honored pile, to cast a parting glance on the glittering towers and the lovely scenery surrounding them, pensively musing as we walked along of the deep and bitter feelings that occupied the bosom of the last of the Cobham race, when he took a last adieu

[NOTE.-Sir Edward Burke says on p. 412 of his Extinct Baronetcies that "Sir John Peyton, governor of the Tower. temp. ELIZABETH, and of the Queens privy council; afterwards in the reign of James I. governor of the Island of Jersey and Guernsey, to which office he succeeded Sir Walter Raleigh, was in the words of an old writer "educated after the politest manner of the age he lived in, by serving in the wars of Flanders under the most able and experienced soldiers and politicians of that time. Amidst the sunshine of a court and the affluences of a large fortune, his conduct was so regular and temperate that his life was prolonged to the age of ninety-nine years, in so much health and vigor that he is said to have rode hunting three or four days before his death."]