On a day (July 27, 1882) when a class of the boys of the King's School of Canterbury was graduated the present writer chanced to be a listener to the impressive and touching sermon that was preached before them, in the cathedral; wherein they were tenderly admonished to keep unbroken their associations with their school-days and to remember the lessons of the place itself. That counsel must have sunk deep into every mind. It is difficult to understand how any person reared amid such scenes and relics could ever cast away their hallowing influence. Even to the casual visitor the bare thought of the historic treasures that are garnered in this temple is, by itself, sufficient to implant in the bosom a memorable and lasting awe. For more than twelve hundred years the succession of the Archbishops of Canterbury has remained substantially unbroken. There have been ninety-three "primates of all England," of whom fifty-three were buried in the cathedral, and here the tombs of fifteen of them are still visible. Here was buried the sagacious, crafty, inflexible, indomitable Henry the Fourth,--that Hereford whom Shakespeare has described and interpreted with matchless, immortal eloquence,--and here, cut off in the morning of his greatness, and lamented to this day in the hearts of the English people, was laid the body of Edward the Black Prince, who to a dauntless valour and terrible prowess in war added a high-souled, human, and tender magnanimity in conquest, and whom personal virtues and shining public deeds united to make the ideal hero of chivalry. In no other way than by personal observance of such memorials can historic reading be invested with a perfect and permanent reality. Over the tomb of the Black Prince, with its fine recumbent effigy of gilded brass, hang the gauntlets that he wore; and they tell you that his sword formerly hung there, but that Oliver Cromwell--who revealed his iconoclastic and unlovely character in making a stable of this cathedral--carried it away. Close at hand is the tomb of the wise, just, and gentle Cardinal Pole, simply inscribed "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord"; and you may touch a little, low mausoleum of gray stone, in which are the ashes of John Morton, that Bishop of Ely from whose garden in Holborn the strawberries were brought for the Duke of Gloster, on the day when he condemned the accomplished Hastings, and who "fled to Richmond," in good time, from the standard of the dangerous Protector. Standing there, I could almost hear the resolute, scornful voice of Richard, breathing out, in clear, implacable accents-- "Ely with Richmond troubles me more near Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength." The astute Morton, when Bosworth was over and Richmond had assumed the crown and Bourchier had died, was made Archbishop of Canterbury; and as such, at a great age, he passed away. Illustration: "Flying Horse Inn, Canterbury."