Back again in London, there is another coach-of-fancy prepared to take us into Kent, from the yard of the Golden Cross. Four gentlemen—one a beaming, spectacled person in drab shorts—are outside passengers for Rochester. And see, here is the ubiquitous Jingle again, clambering to the roof with all his worldly goods wrapped up in a brown paper parcel. “Heads—heads—take care of your heads,” he cries, as we rumble under the old archway; and then, hey! for hopfields and cherry orchards, for “mouldy old cathedrals” in “Cloisterham” or Canterbury, for jolly Kentish yeomen and bright-eyed maids of Kent. . . . Who was that wan-faced, coatless urchin we passed just now in a whirl of chalky dust? His name is Copperfield, and he is on his way to Dover. And is not that Mr. Wardle driving his laughing women-folk to the review? And again, yonder on the brown common, by the Punch and Judy show, there is a grey old man, pillowing in his loving arms a little blue-eyed girl. These, too, we know; and our hearts go out to them, for who of us is there that has not— “. . . with Nell, in Kentish meadows, Wandered, and lost his way”? Of introduction there is no more to be said. The book itself lies open before you; and at your own sweet will you may ramble with it, high and low, through all the land of Dickens. G. B. PREFACE The great majority of English readers—on both sides of the Atlantic—claim personal acquaintance with “Samivel” Weller, Mark Tapley, Oliver Twist, and many more besides: the old companions of our schoolboy days. We cherish pleasant remembrance of the familiar “green leaves” of Dombey, David Copperfield, and the rest, as they first afforded us their monthly quota of interest and enjoyment; and have always maintained intimate relations with Captain Cuttle, Tom Pinch, Mr. Peggotty, and the more recent _dramatis personæ_ of the works of Dickens. We sympathise with Florence, Agnes, and Esther as with sisters, and keep corners of our hearts sacred to the memory of Little Nell, Paul Dombey, and the child-wife Dora. The creations of “bonnie Prince Charlie” have thus become veritable “household words”; part and parcel of our home associations, instinct with personality and life. We never think of them as the airy nothings of imaginative fiction, but regard them as familiar friends, having “a local habitation and a name” amongst us; with whose cheerful acquaintance we could ill afford to part, and who bear us kindly company on the hot and dusty highway of our daily lives. Charles Dickens was essentially a Londoner, always having a fond regard for the highways and by-ways of this great Metropolis, and confessedly deriving his inspiration from the varied phases of Town life and Society. We accordingly find that the main incidents and characters of his novels have here their _mise en scène_.