trongly marked upon their features; black hair and
sparkling black eyes, with a nut-brown complexion and cheeks of russet
red, and not without a shrewd intelligence in their expression.

"At about nine o'clock we arrived at the Guildhall Tavern in the
celebrated and ancient city of Canterbury. Early in the morning, as soon
as we had breakfasted, we visited the superb cathedral. This stupendous
pile is one of the most distinguished Gothic structures in the world. It
is not only interesting from its imposing style of architecture, but from
its numerous historical associations. The first glimpse we caught of it
was through and over a rich, decayed gateway to the enclosure of the
cathedral grounds. After passing the gate the vast pile--with its three
great towers and innumerable turrets, and pinnacles, and buttresses, and
arches, and painted windows--rose in majesty before us. The grand centre
tower, covered with a grey moss, seemed like an immense mass of the
Palisades, struck out with all its regular irregularity, and placed above
the surrounding masses of the same grey rocks. The bell of the great
tower was tolling for morning service, and yet so distant, from its
height, that it was scarcely heard upon the pavement below.

"We entered the door of one of the towers and came immediately into the
nave of the church. The effect of the long aisles and towering, clustered
pillars and richly carved screens of a Gothic church upon the imagination
can scarcely be described--the emotion is that of awe.

"A short procession was quickly passing up the steps of the choir,
consisting of the beadle, or some such officer, with his wand of office,
followed by ten boys in white surplices. Behind these were the
prebendaries and other officers of the church; one thin and pale, another
portly and round, with powdered hair and sleepy, dull, heavy expression
of face, much like the face that Hogarth has chosen for the 'Preacher to
his Sleepy Congregation.' This personage we afterward heard was Lord
Nelson, the brother of the celebrated Nelson and the heir to his title.

"The service was read in a hurried and commonplace manner to about thirty
individuals, most of whom seemed to be the necessary assistants at the
ceremonies. The effect of the voices in the responses and the chanting of
the boys, reverberating through the aisles and arches and recesses of the
church, was peculiarly imposing, but, when the great organ struck in, the
emotion of