ith Durdles and Jasper, from the pages of "Edwin Drood," also, one can
descend into the crypt of the earlier Norman church, the same they visited
by moonlight, when Durdles kept tapping the wall "just where he expected
to disinter a whole family of 'old 'uns.'"

In numerous passages Dickens has truly immortalized what perforce would
otherwise have been very insignificant and unappealing structures. The
Bull Inn, most interesting of all, is unattractive enough as a hostelry.
It would be gloomy and foreboding in appearance indeed, and not at all
suggestive of the cheerful house that it is, did it but lack the
association of Dickens.

No. 17 in the inn is the now famous bedroom of Mr. Pickwick, and the
present coffee-room now contains many relics of Dickens purchased at the
sale held at Gad's Hill Place after the author's death.

Chatham Lines, the meadows, the Cathedral and Castle, "Eastgate House,"
the Nuns' House of "Edwin Drood," "Restoration House," the "Satis House"
of "Great Expectations," serve in a way to suggest in unquestionable
manner the debt which Dickens laid upon Rochester and its surroundings.

"Eastgate House" is said to be the original of the home of Mr. Sapsea, the
auctioneer and estate agent in "Edwin Drood."

The date of Eastgate House, 1591, is carved on a beam in one of the upper
rooms. Dickens, in "Edwin Drood," alludes to Eastgate House as follows:

"In the midst of Cloisterham [Rochester] stands the 'Nuns' House,' a
venerable brick edifice, whose present appellation is doubtless derived
from the legend of its conventual uses. On the trim gate enclosing its old
courtyard is a resplendent brass plate, flashing forth the legend:
'Seminary for young ladies: Miss Twinkleton.' The house-front is so old
and worn, and the brass plate is so shining and staring, that the general
result has reminded imaginative strangers of a battered old beau with a
large modern eye-glass stuck in his left eye."

To-day there is noticeable but little change, and the charm of Rochester
in literary association, if only with respect to Dickens, is far greater
than many another city greater and more comprehensive in its scope.

In the opening scenes of the earlier work Dickens treated of Rochester,
but the whole plot of his last novel, "Edwin Drood," is centred in the
same city.

"For sufficient reasons, which this narrative ["Edwin Drood"] will itself
unfold as it advances, a fictitious name must be bestowed upon the