Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/252

 ROCHESTER AND CANTERBURY CATHEDRALS. 227

It required no great effort of the imagination, in looking across the river, to depict the masculine form of Queen Elizabeth, on horseback, at Tilbury Fort, and hear her stout Tudor voice enunciating to the shouting people, that though she was but a &quot; woman she had the heart of a king, and a king of England too.&quot;

Rochester Cathedral, the smallest of x that class of edifices in the kingdom, bears decided marks of its early Saxon origin. It suffered considerably during the reign of William the First, and at the Reformation. The tombs and statues of Henry the Second and his queen, Matilda, are there, but we saw comparatively few monuments to the illustrious dead.

Like a mountain did old Canterbury Cathedral tower up before us, through the dimness of twilight. More than five hundred feet in length, and its principal tower rising to nearly half that altitude, it is a con spicuous object from every point of approach. Thomas a Beckett s ashes repose here, and in the western tran sept is shown the spot where he met his death at the foot of the altar. Here are also monuments to Ed ward, the Black Prince, Henry the Fourth and his queen, and a multitude of other distinguished persona ges, both of ancient and modern times.

The County of Kent is replete with interesting reminiscences. Its old name of Cuntium, or Corner, bestowed upon it by Cnesar, is explained by Camden from the circumstance of its stretching out in an angular form, and comprehending the south-eastern part of the

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