es our privilege to see and feel
it as it absolutely is. Its interior hidden life becomes familiar as its
commonest outward forms, and we discover that we hardly knew anything of
the places we supposed that we knew the best."

What Scott did for Edinburgh and the Trossachs, Dickens did for London
and the county of Kent. His fascination for the London streets has been
dwelt on by many an author. Mr. Frank T. Marzials says in his
interesting _Life of Charles Dickens_:--

"London remained the walking-ground of his heart. As he liked best to
walk in London, so he liked best to walk at night. The darkness of the
great city had a strange fascination for him. He never grew tired of
it."

Mr. Sala records that he had been encountered "in the oddest places and
in the most inclement weather: in Ratcliff Highway, on Haverstock Hill,
on Camberwell Green, in Gray's Inn Lane, in the Wandsworth Road, at
Hammersmith Broadway, in Norton Folgate, and at Kensal New Town. A
hansom whirled you by the 'Bell and Horns' at Brompton, and there was
Charles Dickens striding as with seven-leagued boots, seemingly in the
direction of North End, Fulham. The Metropolitan Railway disgorged you
at Lisson Grove, and you met Charles Dickens plodding sturdily towards
the 'Yorkshire Stingo.' He was to be met rapidly skirting the grim brick
wall of the prison in Coldbath Fields, or trudging along the Seven
Sisters' Road at Holloway, or bearing under a steady press of sail
through Highgate Archway, or pursuing the even tenor of his way up the
Vauxhall Bridge Road."

That his feelings were intensely sympathetic with all classes of
humanity there is amply evidenced in the following lines, written so far
back as 1841, which Master Humphrey, "from his clock side in the chimney
corner," speaks in the last page before the opening of _Barnaby
Rudge_:--

"Heart of London, there is a moral in thy every
stroke! as I look on at thy indomitable working,
which neither death, nor press of life, nor grief,
nor gladness out of doors will influence one jot,
I seem to hear a voice within thee which sinks
into my heart, bidding me, as I elbow my way among
the crowd, have some thought for the meanest
wretch that passes, and, being a man, to turn away
with scorn and pride from none that bear the human
shape."

On a sultry day, such as this of Friday, the 24th August, 1888