Soon after this came the downfall. With the struggles of the Reformation went the relics, the gold and jewels, and--worse than all--the decorations and painted windows of the Cathedral. With many abuses and with the disgusting humbug of the old order of things went also, it is sad to think, much of the living reality of religion; and Canterbury Cathedral is to-day an historical museum to the crowd of tourists, and an architectural model for students of that first of all the arts. Curiosity, and little else, draws the crowd. Byron has caught the spirit of the times happily enough (although "beadle" and "cathedral" are not among the elegancies of rhyme) when he says of Don Juan and his companion:-- They saw at Canterbury the Cathedral, Black Edward's helm, and Becket's bloody stone, Were pointed out as usual by the beadle, In the same quiet uninterested tone:-- There's glory for you, gentle reader! All Ends in a rusty casque and dubious bone. And how very dubious are the bones that are said to be those of Becket is a question that may not be enlarged upon here. For the rest, a holy calm reigns unbroken in the Cathedral Close. Hemmed in and surrounded[7] by massive walls, modernity has no place here, and if the interior of the building is somewhat disappointing, the exterior and its surroundings, especially the north-east aspect, viewed from the Green Court, must be seen to be appreciated. To be sure, this part of the building is Norman and Early English, and no other periods produced such wildly irregular masses. Added to the original irregularity of outline are the puzzling ruins--ivied wall and broken window--dating from the time when Henry the Eighth's Commissioners destroyed the monastery. Queer passages, dark and tortuous, giving suddenly upon little cloisters and grassy quadrangles, are to be found everywhere; conspicuous among them the "Dark Entry," immortalized by Tom Ingoldsby in his _Legend of Nell Cook_. [Sidenote: THE CITY SERGEANT]